Big Trouble in Little China~Beijing

My final stop on my worldwind~2 week tour of china was beijing. After maybe the most ridiculous airplane ride of my life (No seriously~I assumed I was being filmed) I landed and quite easily made it into center Beijing. The first thing I noticed about this city is they are not screwing around with public transpo. It is amazing. Fast, reliable and extremly efficient, the rest of the world should visit and take note. Since I got to beijing latish, I just kind of lazed around in the hostel, and this was a fairly good hostel to do it.

Bad picture of a lame place.


The next day I rented a bike to cruise around the city. Since there are lanes specifically for bikes, cruising was a non issue, even though you have to go through security to go through Tiennamen square and i got yelled at (Shocker......) it was still kind of cool. I ended up going to the Forbidden city, which should be renamed to the overhyped city. People kept telling me it'd take all day, yadda yadda. I made it my mission and marched through this place. Its essentially a huge palace, which is awesome at first until you realize its building after building of the same type of thing. i did think the audio-tour was awesome. Automated GPS maps? WOAH.




Bored of the circus that was the Forbidden City I biked down not too far away to the temple of heaven. This was spectacular. IT was a huge, quiet park that you could just walk around. Although the Temple of Heaven its self was not as big or obnoxious as the Forbidden City, I thought it was pretty in its simplicity. Lots of colors, very neat. I liked it.



Great Wall


The next day was a heavy hitter. The hostel I was staying in, (Leo) offered a tour that I just decided to take. We drove a few hours north of Beijing proper, past the touisty wall up to a random piece. Little known fact: The wall is HUGE. Like, could wrap around the earth twice huge, so theres heaps of places where you can hike it that doesn't have cable cars and loads of fat tourists. We were able to hike 7 guard towers~or about 3 to 5 km....UPHILL. The wall literally was on top of the mountain range, and followed it up and down. It was a rough climb, but worth it to say you did. Overall it was a fun day with people from the hostel, and one i won't soon be forgetting.

The following day I walked forever. Quite literally. I tried to walk up to a park since I read that you could get a view of the Forbidden City, and I thought that'd be cool. Since Beijing may be the most polluted city in the world it as like looking out on a foggy day. The visibility was nothing and it was all in all a waste of time. THe park was so busy with tour groups and other annoying tourists who thought they owned to place, so I kept walking.
See? Gross

Llama Temple


I made it to an awesome street whos name now escapes me, but the shopping her was cool, and it was just a really nice street. It was kind of reminiscent of something in Europe. After picking up a few things as gifts and walked to the Llama temple, which was a really huge Buddist temple, the largest in Beijing. Tired of temples yet? ONce again, it was expansiive and very beautiful, and had a buddah that was carved out of a tree, which was cool. But since this is Beijing, there was approximatly 1432463 people there, it got old so after admiring it, I rolled out, and kept walking.

Water Cube!

I ended up seeing something I was really excited for~olympic park. I remember how awesome it was to watch the 2008 olympics, and how important the Birds nest and Water cube were, so seeing them was awesome. After they were lit up, they were spectacular, and although I didn't get to go in them, it was spectacular. I really liked just being there. I ate some funky food, but not the chickens with their heads still on them. on sticks. It was cool to see though.

My last day I was lazy. I really just lounged around, and then walked to the infamous night market. You think market, and street foods and acky souveniers comes to mind, but remember, We're in China bitch. Weird Street food was an inderstatement, unless you're used to eating such things as live scorpions and seahorss. Seeing as most things get me sick, I didn't try it, and don't regret it.

Star fish anybody?


There was a lot I liked about Beijing (and China in general) and a lot I disliked. I'm anxious to get back and see Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tiger Leaping, and Tibet; but China is no place I could ever live. My friend summed it up pretty well; China has everything the 1st world has, and some of it is even better, but they still have a 3rd world mentality, which is weird.Quite seriously, it was hard to believe that this is one of the most developed countries in the world. i think the theings that made it quirky and funny would drive me bonkers if I was there for more than a onth at a time. Overall though, China was a top notch, premium experience, and you should try to go.

Patience, faith, and TsingTao,
ErinJ