Flutterby

How busy can a place possibly be?!? That's the first thing i thought when I saw the entrance tot the Forbidden City. It was crawling with people. Everywhere. When we entered the city it was just as crowded...i don't think i ever saw that many people in one place. But back to the City. It is so amazingly huge. The buildings are so tall and wide, the courtyards so big (and without trees because of the Emperors paranoia). The Forbidden city is build on 15 crossed layers laid in seven layers lengthwise and eight layers crosswise, so no one could dig their way in. Parts of the Forbidden City are already renovated, so you can see the beautiful bright colors it once was in. Still the most impressive building is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, build ... read more

We landed in Beijing at 8.35 am Sunday morning. It was a six hour time difference, and we didn't sleep much in the plane. After the whole blabla of passport controls, visa checks and luggage we proceeded the exit. It was pretty gray outside, and a bit colder then expected (17 or 18 degrees Celcius). The rooms weren't ready yet so we did a sightseeing tour through Beijing. I've been there in 2006, before the Olympics, and i have to say not much seemed very different when we were driving through the city. Of course there were even more buildings, very high buildings, but also a lot of reconstruction/renovation, especially the Hutong areas. There were a lot of cars and motorcycles too, and everything just drove from left to right and back...it was so weird. Like ... read more

Day 4 Today we started with a riksja-tour through the Hutongs, the old neigbourhoods. Two in each riksja cart. It was fun to get a tour like that. First stop was the Drum-tower. It was really big, but when the guide said the stairs we're good practice for the Great Wall, which we would visit the next day, everyone was a little bit concerned.... But about the drum-tower, we saw the drum-ceremony, which was ok. Nice to see it once. After that we had some free time to take pictures of the view and buy cards or souvenirs they sold there. After that we went to a small shopping street. I bought a wooden dragon there. Really pretty and very glad I bought it. The whole bargaining thing was getting better everytime I tried it. And ... read more