5th to 7th June The Great Wall of China and Beijing

We boarded a minibus at 7.30am for our two hour drive to the Mutianyu Great Wall. When we arrived at the car park we had to run the gauntlet, through the T-shirt/ souvenir sellers and up to catch a gondola to the start of the walk.

  Our walk took us from tower 14 to tower 23. The views were spectacular even though it was not clear. The way we walked was not overrun with tourists, it was very steep in parts. David and Scott decided to run up the steepest section (around 80 meters of stairs at a 45 degree angle) Scott made it about 1/3 of the way and David stopped about 1/2 way legs burning and gasping for air. We eventually made it all the way to the end of the wall that has been re-constructed. It was hot and thirsty work but well worth it for the views.

 

We walked back and took the gondola back down to run the gauntlet of market stall vendors again. We have now visited 5 of the new 7 wonders of the world. Only Chichen Itza and the Taj Mahal to go!

Back in Beijing we had a tour of the Forbidden city and Tiananmen Square. We walked over the huge moat to start at the North Gate (Shenwu Gate).

Our first stop was the Imperial peace hall and the Imperial garden. We followed our guide past many decorative buildings and made our way to the hall of preserving harmony, The hall of middle harmony and The hall of supreme harmony. There were many people everywhere and it was difficult to get a look inside the buildings as these pictures show. David managed to muscle his way in to get the shot of the throne in the hall of supreme harmony.

We exited via the Meridian Gate and walked to Tiananmen Square. David almost got trampled while taking a photo of some marching soldiers.

The size of Tiananmen Square is what we were expecting of Red Square in Moscow. As you can see it was relatively empty when we were there, we were expecting it to be jam packed. We caught the subway back to near the hotel where we had a rest before heading out to our farewell dinner. We went to a local restaurant for peking duck and afterwards caught taxis to Guloudong Dajie where we went to a few bars around Hauhai and Qianhai lakes.

 

6th We checked out of our room leaving our bags in the storage area and headed off to the pearl markets. We passed the Ming dynasty city wall ruins park.

 

It was about a 2km walk to the pearl markets. We passed many big new shopping centres. The paths and roads were wide and not very crowded, which surprised us. At the markets there were 5 floors. The floors were full of little stalls, each area on the floor had stalls with much the same goods to sell. As you passed them the sellers were calling out "lady you want handbag" and grabbing onto your arm and trying to put the bag on your arm as you walked passed. Catriona bought some puma shoes before we set off back to the hotel passing the walls of the Temple of heaven. There was a guy on a bridge selling a huge string of kites.

We stopped of at the new world shopping mall where Catriona bought some socks and we shared a plate of dumplings for lunch in the food court.

 

We walked back to the hotel and picked up our bags and caught a taxi to our new accommodation at the Peking YHA which is located very close to the forbidden city in a hutong. Later in the evening we had dinner in a local restaurant in a hutong. The dinner was good and very cheap, only $5 each and it included a beer!

7th We caught up with John and Lorna on Skype before setting off to explore the city on the bikes we hired. We followed the route for the cycle tour in the lonely planet. It started at Tiananmen Square and headed through the red and purple gate around the walls of the forbidden city.

We cycled right past the front gates of the forbidden city and around the west side then up into Dashizuo hutong, a winding maze of skinny streets and residences.

We made our way to Qianhai lake again and then to the bell and drum towers nearby.

We then rode through another maze of hutongs to one of Beijing's most famous alley ways, Nanluogu Xiang. We had lunch of Gongbao Jiding Pizza at the Pass By Bar, David saw a cycle jersey that he really liked so we had to make a detour back to the hostel down the busy streets to pick up our credit card and back to the bar again.  The design on the jersey is like the bottom poster in this picture.

Next we rode down streets with alot of traffic and many local bike riders to get to the Lama temple. We bought our entrance tickets, which included a mini cd, and wandered through the huge complex. The Lama temple is the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet.

Next stop was the Confucius Temple and Imperial College. We walked through a building with 190 stone tablets which took a man 12 years to complete the 630,000 Chinese characters recording 13 Confucian classics. The throne in the Imperial college is where the Emperor recited some of Confucius' classics to and audience of thousands of kneeling students.

We rode back along busy roads, swerving past people, bikes, cars and busses but all the time feeling safe. Later in the evening we went for a walk along Doughuamen night market where they were selling all sorts of things on sticks to eat ie. scorpions and other insects. We had already eaten dinner so we didn't feel the need to buy anything.

We continued on to Wangfujing Dajie pedestrian mall, which was lit up like Vegas.