Yesterday, I returned to HK from spending Thursday-Sunday in the lovely city of Beijing with Anna S. It was a great trip & it was amazing that I was able to see some of the most beautiful historical sites in the world! However, the locals were celebrating National Day, and Beijing was full of people, which meant everything was unbelievably crowded! Around 2 PM on Thursday, Anna & I made it to Beijing and immediately (thank goodness) found our driver to take us to our hotel - the Shatan Hotel. I LOVED our hotel - it was super clean, spacious, and the staff was very helpful. There was this fabulous Western cafe across the street that we went to every day & I miss it already! We had some great conversations there with many tourists from Norway, Australia, England, etc. & people from all over would write messages on the walls - too bad we didn't get asked to do so, but there wasn't much room left on the walls :) On Thursday night, Anna & I went to see the Beijing Opera. Let's just say that I never want to experience something like that again, hahaha! The performers don't sing, they screech & it started to hurt my ears! At least the costumes and makeup were fun to look at though!
*Beijing Opera performers
*Video from opera :)
On Friday, we took a tour to the Great Wall & also went to the Ming Tombs, jade & silk factories, a tea house, and we even got a foot massage :) We were expecting to go to the less crowded part of the Wall, and that is what we paid to do, but apparently it didn't work out that way. Seeing the Great Wall was surreal, and there were so many people trying to go up and come down at the same time, so there was absolutly no order. I was scared for my life before we decided to start climbing up, but it was a great experience otherwise. After leaving the Great Wall, we went to the Ming Tombs of the 12th Emperor of China. We didn't get to see the actual tomb, just the entrance to the tomb, but it was still really neat! We also drove past the 2008 Olympic Bird's Nest & Water Cube, which were both really impressive, but never visited the actual buildings. I did manage to snap a quick picture from the bus though!
*Me before our climb up the Great Wall
*Ming Tombs
On Saturday, we went to the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, and pearl factory - all were so amazing!! We started off at the Summer Palace (an area where Empress Cixi lived) & toured the grounds to see Cixi's living quarters. Tourists aren't allowed to go up to the actual palace, but the view of the palace from afar is stunning. We also took a dragon boat from one side of the palace to the other, really neat :) Our next stop was the Temple of Heaven, which is a Taoist temple. This was my favorite building as the colors & details were so intricate & bright (it was just repainted before the 2008 Olympics). We couldn't get a view inside the temple as there were so many people crowded around in order to snap a few pictures, but short old me couldn't manage to do so, haha! Finally, we ventured to the Forbidden City, which is MASSIVE!!! After a while, everything started to look the same as it's one big maze. I can't imagine how people found their way around back in the day. After leaving our tour guide, we went to the Silk Market, which was pure insanity. The owners of the booths would grab your arms & say "lady,lady, come look, come look" - I just wanted to get away as fast as possible because they were like savage wolves! I like the markets in HK much better! We had some great people on our tours on Friday & Saturday - a few from Vietnam, Australia, Austria, and one older man from Peru that looked & smelled exactly like my Grandpa! I wish I would have taken a picture with him because it was so peculiar how much he reminded me of my Grandpa! I'm glad we decided to do the tours because there's no way we would have been able to see as much as we did in the few days we were there.
*Summer Palace
*Temple of Heaven :)
*Entrance to Forbidden City
Sunday, we slept in late as we had been getting up between 5 & 6 AM for our tours the past two days & of course we ate at our favorite cafe before heading off to the airport. Sunday must have been the final celebration for National Day, because so many locals were parading around in the streets. When our driver picked us up for the airport, it took forever to get through the streets until the highway because no one would move!! So, word to the wise: don't go to Mainland China during the National Day weekend, haha :) All in all, Beijing was a wonderful experience, minus the crowds of the people, & I'm so happy I decided to go. We went for the perfect amount of time as I started to miss HK (Bejing is much more traditional) & the mass pollution was getting to my contacts! I also even got to practice my Mandarin, but the men speak with really heavy "r"'s & I couldn't understand them at all compared to the women.
Until next time, love you all! Oh & a note of celebration is needed: the Yanks made it to post-season, yessss!!!! I can see Yankees World Series '10 Champs attire already :)
Pictures, pictures!!:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094050&id=1490346167&l=1ef1dbe1cf
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