Beijing
The third stop on our trip was Beijing. This was probably the part of the trip I was looking forward to the most. Most of the main attactions are here (Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tian’an Men Square). As usual, our new local guide met us at the airport, and took us straight to the next bit of the tour. In this instance, the Temple of Heaven. It took a while to get there due to the really bad traffic in Beijing. Apparently 1,000 new cars join the road in Beijing every day.
The temple of heaven itself was quite pretty. Apparently it had just had some restoration work done on it. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to go inside, so I just had to poke my camera through one of the windows to take a picture.
On the first full day we headed north of Beijing to the Great Wall. It absolutely packed with people, as you can see from some of the photos below. We went up the bit that was harder to climb, so it was less busy. It got scarily steep at some points. Yet right at the top there were still a load of Chinese women waiting for us with the obligatory ‘I climbed the great wall’ t-shirts, ready to do a deal.
After visiting another restaurant/shop for lunch we headed to the Ming Tombs, the final resting place of 13 of the Ming dynasty emperors.
On the start of our second full day in Beijing we headed for Tian’an Men Square and the Forbidden City. It was already quite hot outside by the time we got there, and Tian’an Men Square is basically a giant slab of concrete, so we started cooking. Thankfully it wasn’t long before we headed for the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City was spectacular. It was absolutely massive. Unfortunately some of the larger buildings were being renovated in time for the 2008 olympics, so we didn’t get to see those. However, as you can see below, there was still plenty to see.
In the afternoon we went to see the summer palace. The emperor’s retreat from the stifling summers in the Forbidden City.
In the morning before heading off to the airport to catch a plane to Xi’an, we had just enough time for a couple of short excursions. First we went off to the zoo to see the pandas.
Then after the pandas we went for a rickshaw ride round the hutong.
