We ended up having to spend twice as long in Hanoi as we had planned due to difficulties in obtaining a Chinese visa and finding a flight. Finally, on June 25th we flew to Beijing - not surprisingly we were greeted by our swine flu buddies again. Thankfully, we got through just fine this time!!
We had an ambitious idea of what we wanted to see in China so we only stayed in Beijing for a day and a half knowing that we would have a couple more days in Beijing at the end of our trip.
We were tired and feeling a little goofy after our long flight, crazy bus ride into the city and long walk on a construction filled road to our hostel . . . thus the dorky picture.
People actually DO wear these hats in China. I never thought they actually did!
We kept hearing about Peking Duck being fabulous in Beijing so we had to try it. You order a whole duck and get four different cuts of meat along with some fixings. One of the "cuts of meat" was all of the entrails and nasty stuff - we didn't eat anything from that plate. It was neat to see the chef carving your duck in the back, but overall we were only mildly impressed by the dish.
Just a funny side note: whole families in the restaurant ordered the same size Coca Cola that just the 2 of us finished. We're such Americans!
The next day we went to Tienanmen Square, the largest public square in the world! It's size and grandeur was quite impressive. In Tienanmen Square is Chairman Mao's Mausoleum, the front of the Forbidden City and a lot of Asians wanting to take pictures with blonde people (aka me!! haha).
Forbidden City in the background. It didn't seem that hazy when we were walking around but I'm almost certain it's smog making this picture hazy. The smog didn't bother us when we were there, luckily.
I was excited to see Mao's iconic portrait.
We knew the Forbidden City was large but we had no idea how MASSIVE it really is. There are a series of main buildings running down the center of the city where only the Emperor, high officials and invited guests were allowed. For over 500 years no common people were allowed in the city (hence the name). Behind me you can see a white walkway were only the Emperor was allowed to walk. This particular portion of the walkway was carved 100's of miles away and brought here on an "ice highway" - during the winter months workers created an ice highway and drug this entire piece to it's final place here in the City.
On the sides of the city are many smaller buildings and walkways.
I couldn't resist putting this funny sign up. I think the fact that they rate toilets tells you something about the quality of some facilities :)
To give you an idea of the scale of some of these buildings, those little specks in the background are other tourists! We spent many hours walking around the City but feel as though we could spend days there and still not see everything there is to see.
We booked a train to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors. We took this picture of the train station before boarding the train for what would be one of the longest and craziest nights of our whole trip (and probably our whole life!!).
K & A
1 comment:
I'm so excited to see these pictures. You're hair looks so dark here. You don't look blonde. :)
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