Hello everyone, I have not been very diligent keeping the blog current so I will try to fill you all in on what has been happening with us lately starting with our trip to Beijing this spring. "Bei" in Mandarin means north while "jing" translates to capital. Historically, Nanjing, a city not too far from Shanghai (translated as "south capital" - get it??) was the capital of China for 6 different dynasties since 3 A.D. From 1279 onward Beijing ruled (for the most part) as the capital over all of China.
Traveling to Beijing was on the list of "places to go while we live in China" so during Joe's week long holiday at the end of April we decided to make the trek north. I spent hours researching the places we should go and the things we should see, so for the 4 days we were there, we packed in a lot of sightseeing, adventures and memories. We took a bullet train and traveled around 1300km in about 4.5 hours time, going approx 300kmph.
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| Yummy |
First of all, our hotel was located on a pedestrian street that is really touristy, in fact, right outside the front door was a "night market" which opened up around 4pm and lasted who knows how long into the night. Here there was a long row of food vendors selling everything from traditional Chinese dumplings, fruit skewers and curly fries to non-traditional/novelty skewers of snakes, scorpions, seahorses, silkworms and locusts. Talk about interesting. What was really creepy was seeing the legs of the scorpions still moving... sorry if I lost some of you there... sad but true. Needless to say, it was a happening place. Having had bad experiences with street food, we played it as safe as possible.
For our first outing we went to see a Kung Fu show which we all really enjoyed. It had a lot of action and followed a good story. Since then Lachlan has regularly asked to "dress like a Kung Fu guy" which means, going shirtless. :)
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| Gate of Heavenly Peace |
The next morning we got up early to make our way to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (currently known as The Palace Museum). I like to still call it the Forbidden City - sounds more interesting and mysterious. ;) They were walking distance from our hotel and easy to find. Being a Sunday, you can imagine the crowds. Walking through Tiananmen Square brought quite a bit of emotion; amazement of its sheer size and terrifying recent history.
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| At the Hall of Supreme Harmony |
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| You can see the hill we later climbed behind us here. |
From there we followed the crowd to the "Gate of Heavenly Peace" which leads us to the Forbidden City, which is where the Emperors of China traditionally lived. Upon entering, we were approached by a young man who offered to be our guide through the Forbidden City. We were a little wary and asked a number of times about his fee and finally agreed to let him be our guide. Bruce was his name :) Chinese people often give themselves an English name and he had named himself after his hero - Bruce Lee. Having Bruce lead us through the buildings and show us important features was truly a blessing. We gained a lot of insight we would not have known on our own, we probably would have gotten ourselves lost and wandered for hours in there, plus his English was very good (better than some other "guides" we passed). It was such a neat experience being somewhere so old and that holds so much historical significance. I told Joe that I have never been on such "royal" ground before. It is surrounded by a moat, high walls and was off-limits to the majority of society for hundreds of years. Also, it has what would have been the tallest building in the city before modern times - the Hall of Supreme Harmony - which housed the Emperor's throne. It stands taller than the other buildings which has, unfortunately given it a lightning rod effect. It has been destroyed by fire 7 times.
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| The view of the Forbidden City!! |
After spending nearly 2 hours in the Forbidden City we entered a park on the north side of it and climbed a small hill for a view overlooking the Forbidden City. Now, Beijing is known for being even smoggier than Shanghai, but we were fortunate to have blue skies and a clear view.
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| The Great Wall of China!! |
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| So. Many. Stairs. |
The next day was our trip to the Great Wall of China. We hired a private car/driver to take us to a restored section of the Great Wall called Mutianyu. Again, we had a beautiful, sunny morning and spent a couple of hours climbing stairs, marveling at this work of man and enjoying the view (and the fresh air!!). What surprised me was how short the length of refinished wall was - it didn't take us long to reach the end. Here we saw an opening to where the unfinished wall continued and after talking with some of the other tourists who had "illegally" gone down that path, we decided to venture out as well!! This was a highlight. This was a true hike. Bushes were growing on the path, parts of it had crumbled away and we needed to climb nearly vertically in areas. Looking back, this may not have been the wisest with a 6 and 3 year old in tow, but they were troopers and thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. To get to the top of the Wall, we needed to ride a lift, like a ski-lift, and the trip down was another highlight - a bobsled-like slide that wound its way down the mountain. Joe and Autumn went flying at top speed whereas Lachlan and I were a little more cautious - to the point of backing up the line behind us, haha. Still, it was a blast.
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| On the original Wall |
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| Closely following the path |
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| Lama Temple |
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| Lachlan meeting a Buddhist monk |
On our final day, we went to the Lama Temple. No, it did not have llamas, it belongs to a Tibetan sect of Buddhism. Think Dalai Lama. The significance of this temple is that it was given imperial status and though temple roofs are traditionally made of turquoise tiles, its were given yellow - reserved only for the Emperor and seen only in the Forbidden City. Another point of interest is that it houses a 26m tall statue of the Maitreya Buddha carved from a single piece of White Sandalwood.
We did notice some differences between Beijing and Shanghai. Beijing seems more westernized. We saw more people who were overweight in an average day than we do here. People tend to be a bit more aggressive farther north, so we've been told and we did have to do our fair share of bargaining. I always felt a surge of victory after successfully completing a negotiation with street merchants. They expected this fair-haired foreigner to be an easy target. ;) In both Beijing and Shanghai they speak Mandarin, and without being a student of the language I could definitely hear a different accent. Shanghai seems like the more sophisticated of the two in our opinion. Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit and would love to have spent more time at the Great Wall.
Written by Brenda
