Beijing - Flight, Palace, Duck...

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Flight, Palace, Duck...

Tuesday


So we set out for Beijing at 7:30am in the morning and arrived at the airport very early for our flight. Our friend Carey was traveling with us but she was on a different airline. As we were waiting to get our tickets and check our bags she sent us a text saying that two more of our friends were on the same flight as her. When we got to the counter we asked if we could please have an aisle for Scott and the man at the desk said, “You know you are in business class right?” HAHA! I had just booked the cheapest flights I could find and it turns out our trip to Beijing was in business class and I didn’t even know it! So after getting our tickets etc... Carey, our two other friends and us went to get some good ‘ol western food. Then we caught our flight and really enjoyed the big seats, the food and the service in business class.

When we got into Beijing we took a train into the city and then walked forever to find our hotel. When we got to the hotel we had a slight problem. We had booked our trip through expedia.ca and it turned out that Expedia hadn’t paid the hotel for us even though I had paid Expedia with my credit card. Umm... What? So after trying to argue with someone who spoke no English, had no international phone, and no internet, we ended up paying for it again. We still haven’t spoken with Expedia about it. But we’ll get on that soon. For the rest of the evening we just explored our area and went out for dinner.


The Forbidden City


For our first day we decided to go to the Forbidden City. It was only a few subway stops away from our hotel so it was a good starting point. Unfortunately while we were visiting it was also a holiday for the Chinese so everywhere was packed. But once we were in it was amazing. There are so many palaces and the whole place is massive! Take a look at the pictures they will be better at explaining then I ever could. There were lots of dragons and phoenixes painted on the temples which were super neat and there were these massive bronze lions built as guardians for the Emperor. Oh by the way, this whole place what where the Emperor, his wife, and his concubines lived, worked, played, etc. It would have been a pretty sweet pad. It is the largest most complete set of buildings from the Ming dynasty. There were also these big brass bowls that were filled with water because the buildings had the unfortunate habit of being struck by lightning and burning down. At the back of the Forbidden City (aka the Imperial Palace) is a beautiful garden. Really it has the most stunning tree and rock formations. It’s too bad it took so long to walk through the front section and that we were therefore tired when we got to the garden because I could have spent a whole day there, it was so beautiful. The trees in the garden are mostly over 200 years old. The ones with a red tag on them are 300 years or older. Unfortunately the subway was where we came in so we had to walk back to the front to exit. We walked through a really long red-walled corridor. Afterwards we headed across the street to Tiananmen Square.


Tiananmen Square


Tiananmen Square was pretty much just a big open square. It had a big monument in the middle called the Monument to the People’s Heroes, and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Adjacent to the square is The Great Hall of the People. If you enjoy the history of the People’s Republic of China then I’m you’ll feel that we aren’t giving the square enough attention. But we don’t really care. So we were really hungry at that point and decided to get some food. We went for the Peking duck! We also chose to get the crispy Peking duck so our duck’s skin had been brushed with some kind of glaze that got really really crispy while roasting. It was SO good! You could taste how fatty it was, but it was awesomely delicious. On a side note, we watch a TV show called Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern and on it he always eats brains and other weird parts of the animal, so I tried a piece of the brain with the eye. Turns out Mr. Zimmern is a big fat liar when he says it tastes good. It’s got a really weird creamy texture that kind of sticks to your mouth. I would not recommend it. 😊

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Photos

Before going in
Sooo bright!

DUCK!
We ate this duck. It was delicious

Comments

[uj]

aloha!
thx for the post! "beijing duck" just doesn't sound right somehow. kinda frenchish

[Bernie (Uncle)]

Terrific photos! HOWEVER, don't put eyes and brains in your mouth! They are yucky! Eat Big Macs, lots of them. They are nature's most perfect food!

[Sandra Wu]

tours to Beijing China
Wonderful pictures! Just try the mouthwatering Beijing Roast Duck!

[Dorina]

MMM!
Looks amazing!