Beijing

Beijing was absolutely amazing!!! We spent 7 nights in Beijing and we didn’t stop the whole time. There are so many things to see and do, the Forbidden City is such an epic sight. It is absolutely massive and opposite the front gates is Tianamen Square, dominating the centre of Beijing.

We took a whole day to look around the Forbidden City, it was a labyrinth of never ending corridors and palaces. The emperors lived in such splendor and with 1000s of concubines (women who the Emperor could ‘call upon’ whenever he wished) – in those days the Emperor was the only fertile man in the Forbidden City, all the other men (guards and cooks etc) called Eunuchs had there ‘manhood’ removed so that if a girl fell pregnant in the Forbidden City the child would have to be the Emperors – MENTAL!!!!

We also walked up to the hill above the Forbidden City to see the view from above, the whole site is absolutely massive, it was really worth walking up to see the view:

The next day we visited the Summer Palace – this is where the imperial family came to escape the summer heat in the Forbidden City. It is set over massive grounds with a huge lake in the middle, we went on quite a foggy day which was a little shame but we had a great day there, the temples and pagodas were beautiful.

 

There is so much to do in Beijing we could have stayed for longer, we visited the zoo, which was really cool lots of animals etc but not up to western zoo standard – the pandas were really grubby and scratched constantly and the Siberian tigers they had there looked less then impressed with their living conditions. We also went on bike rides around the old ally ways or ‘Hutongs’ to see the old Beijing and walked around the Temple of Heaven park where loads of Chinese people get together in their spare time and dance and sing, play cards and dominoes. The city has a really rich culture and traditions, it’s really nice to amble around and watch them.

The Great Wall – this was one the best days I’ve ever had, the sight of the Great Wall is absolutely breathtaking, the sheer immensity of the construction is overwhelming and to think they did it all without fancy excavators and cranes – the emperor really was crazy!!! There are loads of sections of the wall you can visit we did a tour called ‘the ancient to secret wall’ the first two watch towers were reconstructed to show what it would have looked like all those years ago but after those two towers it was all original wall, Ben and I were scrambling up it at one stage, it’s really steep in places! We had such a great day and the weather was great for us so we could see the wall snake off in to the distance for miles – it is definitely one of our recommendations to do in the world!

The other place where we spent a lot of time in Beijing was the markets!!! They are absolutely amazing just 1000s of bags, electronics, watches, clothes. We were very over excited when we first walked in them! I did get a bit out of control but as always Ben stopped me when I was getting over excited – damn! The food was another good thing about Beijing, we had real Peking Duck and it was sooooo yum. The first place we went to I wasn’t so amused with, it was a horrible place and I saw a ruddy rat run though the restaurant, lovely. We also went to a really nice place to try it again and it was exceptional, so much nicer than crispy duck pancakes in the UK and you got loads of it!

 

This was one of the other culinary options!