After 20 hours of travelling from Mumbai via Delhi and Shanghai, we finally arrived in Beijing to a cooler climate of 10 degrees celcius!!! The scenery that greeted us as we travelled from the airport to the hotel was not what I expected, I am not really sure what I expected, but it looked just like England in the autumn!! It reminded me of driving along the motorway and heading into London, going from the countryside views with the trees at the side of the road, their leaves changing colour and dropping all around them, covering the ground with shades of brown and yellow. Then heading into the city, tall buildings, big buildings, modern buildings, neon signs, a concrete jungle, a modern metropolis, basically a step back into modern living for us and that is reflected in the prices here, which are similar to the UK, just like the brands. We could not resist a bit of shopping in H&M, even though we really should not be trying to squeeze anything else in our backpacks! This is definitely the place to shop, everything you could possibly desire is here, and I have to say I have missed this a bit! With christmas just a month away, there is definitely a theme going on here, and what with the cold, lights, decorations, we are starting to feel a bit christmassy, sitting in starbucks drinking the seasonal toffee nut latte and eating cherry chocolate muffins!!!
The main difficulty we are finding is the language barrier as NO ONE really speaks english!! So glad we are doing a tour and not trying to navigate around here ourselves. Nicola's friend Carmel arrived today and we also met another girl Chantelle from Canada, who is also on the same tour as us. We all met for dinner and plan to do a tour together tomorrow of the Summer Palace.
We woke the following morning to a beautiful sunny day and took the subway to the Summer Palace, which is an experience in itself. so modern and clean and very easy to navigate. The palace did not disappoint either, it was set in beautiful grounds with traditional chinese buildings, more the China I was expecting to see. We strolled around the grounds for a while taking in the scenic views all around us, a mix of the old with the new, the lakes, fish, trees and birds with the city of Beijing all around us. We enjoyed some lunch and took the subway to Beijing Zoo because we wanted to see the giant pandas, while we still have the chance to view these magnificent creatures before they become extinct. The zoo itself was very depressing and a lot of the animals were in small concrete cages and looked unhappy and stressed, so we saw the pandas, which were better placed and seemed ok, and left as we had to get back for our welcome meeting and were looking forward to meeting the members of our tour who would be joining us.
Andy is going to be our guide for the next 10 days, and explained everything about the tour to us in the meeting. We all did our introductions, there is 15 of us plus Andy, so the tour is full. There is a couple from Russia, a couple from Scotland, who are expecting twins! A couple from Holland, 3 Canadians, 2 Americans, 2 Australians and an englishman, quite a mixed bag, but everyone seems nice and we have our little foursome to include the new recruit Carmel who will be staying with Nicola and I until we leave for South America in February and Chantelle who will just be joining us until Hong Kong!
After the meeting the four of us went to a restaurant nearby to try the famous Peking Duck! It was amazing and we stuffed ourselves until we were full, although no one was adventurous enough to eat the head which was served to us, obviously a delicacy! Then off to bed as we have a big day tomorrow at the Great Wall!
Another beautiful crisp sunny day, however feels about 0 degrees outside!!! It is freezing!!! And it will be even colder at the Great Wall! We layered up and arrived at Mutianyu by bus 2 hours later. Andy was telling us if they made a road with all the stones from the great wall it would go round the world 4 times!!! Can not believe we are really here!! It is so surreal, and such a magnificent structure, to think it was built all those years ago by sheer manpower alone is a feat in itself. I feel so privileged that I have got this chance to see it and it still has not really sunk in. China is an amazing place, and is living up to everything I imagined and more. The climate is so cold here today that there is ice on the wall and people are slipping up around us, including one of the ladies on our tour who hit her head, it is pretty dangerous. In the end Chantelle and I decided it was best to just sit down on the floor and slide down on our rear as that was probably where we would end up sooner or later. The chinese people around us thought this was hilarious, so at least we provided some entertainment, and I have to admit it was fun!!!
After lunch at Subway, yes a subway sandwich bar at the wall, bizarre!! We did a bit of shopping in the market and went to the Temple of Heaven, which is where the prayers are made for a good harvest! We were so cold by now we had a quick look round and headed back for dinner and a show. We had decided to see the Chinese Acrobats and they were awesome!! How anyone can contort their body like these people I will never know, but it was spectacular! Absolutely exhausted now, we went straight to the hotel for a hot bath and get packed and ready for bed as we leave for Xian tomorrow night.
Our last day in Beijing! We visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was really getting cold here now and we were looking forward to heading south for some warmer weather! `In the afternoon we took a rickshaw ride around the old city which was much more traditional and visited some houses of some of the local families to see how they live, it is an interesting culture!
I have really enjoyed Beijing and am looking forward to Xian and a chinese version of a sleeper train, which I am sure is 10 times better then the Indian ones we are used to. I was not disappointed. Comfortable beds, fully made up and windows, I had the top bunk and slept like a baby until the morning. We arrived in Xian at 7am!
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