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BEIJING:
May 6th- We arrived in Beijing late in the evening and met our Beijing tour guide, Michael, who ended up being the coolest tour guide of our entire trip! Michael and our driver then took us to our hotel, which was only minutes away from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We got some rest before the first big day of our tour!
May 7th- On this day we were picked up early to begin our tour. We started out at Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the WORLD, and then walked across the street to the Forbidden City. This is the largest Imperial Palace in the whole world, and 24 different emperors of the Ming & Qing dynasties lived and controlled China from here for several hundred years. Walking through it, it almost felt as though we were no longer in Beijing....as the walls that were once built to guard it were extremely high all around us! It was really huge too...and took us at least a few hours to walk through it and learn the history from our guide.
Next we had a delicious Chinese lunch, and then headed to an authentic silk
market. Here we saw how silk is made, and we also had the chance to buy authentic silk comforters for a really good price. We all jumped in on that bargain! After that we went to the Temple of Heaven, a really beautiful temple in Beijing.
From here, our tour should have been over for the day, but Michael offered to take us to do much more. So, next we went to a real Chinese tea house, where we sipped different types of teas and watched as they were made right in front of us. And lastly, we headed to a show called "The Legend of Kung Fu." We weren't expecting much, but WOW...were we in for a surprise. Not only was the story really touching, but some of the physical acts done in this show were completely astonishing...complete with backflips done with no arms (so they landed on their heads), and chopping cement blocks with their bare hands/heads!!
May 8th- This day was really cool, as we got to go to the Great Wall today! But, first we did some other things... We began the day by heading to the Changling Mausoleum, the largest of the 13
Ming tombs, and then we went to another authentic Chinese factory - the Jade Factory. Next, we had some lunch, and then began our drive to the Great Wall of China. We went to the area of the Great Wall known as Mutianyu, which was about a 2 hour drive for us. We could have gone to an area known as Badaling, which was much closer, but we had heard that that area was the most "touristy" and also that that part of the wall was mostly all redone. Mutianyu in comparison, was in its original form, and had a lot less people walking around - and so we got some really great pictures as well!
May 9th- OK, so maybe this day was actually my favorite! This day we had the entire day free, and so we headed to the "Silk Market" where we shopped all day long!! Despite its name, this Silk Market did not just sell silk. It had ANYTHING you could have possibly dreamed of, and much more...and all for ridiculously cheap prices. Most prices had to be bargained, or haggled, but Larry and Danny got right into it...and after awhile it felt like we
were playing a big game with all of the Chinese vendors. Some of the great bargains we got included designer sunglasses for the equivalent of $2.50, designer jeans for about $10, and DVDs for about $0.75!!! How fun! By the end of the day, we realized we had shopped for nearly 10 hours straight...only stopping to eat an occasional meal or to stay hydrated. We even had to buy more luggage just to get all the stuff back home!!!
May 10th- This was (sniff, sniff) our last day in Beijing. This morning we started the day off by visiting a local Chinese hutong - the old houses/courtyards/alleyways where locals outside of the Imperial Palace have lived for centuries. Today, many hutong are disappearing to make way for new roads, business parks and expensive high rises, so we felt really privileged that we got the opportunity to do this on our tour. We even got a rickshaw ride around the hutong!
Next, we made a quick stop at the Beijing Zoo. This zoo wasn't very spectacular, but they had many great giant pandas, which were really neat to see up close. Lastly, we went to the beautiful Summer Palace,
which appropriately was where the emperors spent their summer holidays. This palace overlooked a beautiful man-made lake, which we took a boat ride on at the end of our time here. We wanted to stay here longer, it was so nice. But, we had to have lunch and then we headed to the airport to get to the next city on our list - Xi'an.
Stay tuned for Xi'an...
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Gareth & Mel
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Nice pipes!
Been working out Larry? Nice Pipes! Lookin' good mate.