Beijing, China
10:23 AM
Hi all
Having flown back to China to arrive in Changchun, north east of Beijing from my trip to Australia, I was keen to get back to Beijing for a weekend. Last weekend I managed to do this. I headed back to Beijing Friday and joined some colleagues for a few cheeky beers Friday night before getting up for a 7am journey out to the Great Wall saturday morning.
I was joined by my colleague Carolyn, and the two of us headed by car to the Mutianyu location of the great wall. Here we took one of two cable cars up and walked from that cable car stop to the other, roughly an hours walk. To anyone visiting this section of the wall, definitely take the red cable car, the one not associated with the toboggan up to the wall, and then walk to the other cable car or the toboggan for the downward trip. Doing it this way, you get more downhill than uphill. Trust me, that's a HUGE tip.
Anyway, the wall is simply stunning. Running right along the ridges of the mountains, it's quite amazing. What was more amazing was the lack of tourists. I have photos without another soul in them. That simply does not happen in China. We actually walked past the other chair lift and up a very steep section of the wall as far as they let tourists go. Well worth it but my sore legs say otherwise.
After the great wall, we headed to the Summer Palace, via the construction site of the "Birds nest", which is the Olympic Stadium in Beijing. Very cool to see, given I *hopefully* won't be here still during the Olympics. The Summer Palace is a pretty location with lots of temple-type buildings with names such as "Purple Heaven Hall" or "Hall of Virtuous Glories". Perhaps my favourite was "Bridge of Knowing the Fishes". Haha. We wandered around the expansive Palace area for the rest of the afternoon.
Saturday night we had a little Team China, Deloitte Perth dinner before meeting up with more colleague to paint the town red. This included my friend Sigi, from Austria. Was great to catch up with him again.
Sunday we headed to the Temple of Heaven, which was actually quite cool, which surprised me as i'm a little Temple'd out. After walking around there, we headed for Tiananmen Square then onwards to the Forbidden City. Beijing put on a belter of a day weather wise and it was very hot walking around. The other disappointing thing was that so much of Beijing is under construction in preparation for the Olympics. The larger of the halls/buildings/temples within the Forbidden City are all under construction so we couldn't have a good look. Never mind. Interesting to see anyway.
That just about wrapped up our day with an evening flight back to Changchun on the cards. Heading back to Shanghai next weekend so unless I discover a part of Shanghai I haven't seen to write about, there probably won't be an update. Still hoping to get to Xian next to see the Terracotta Warriors so stay tuned to see if I can make that work.
Lots of pics on photobucket to match this rather epic posting.
Hope you are all well, miss you all heaps.
Dave
Having flown back to China to arrive in Changchun, north east of Beijing from my trip to Australia, I was keen to get back to Beijing for a weekend. Last weekend I managed to do this. I headed back to Beijing Friday and joined some colleagues for a few cheeky beers Friday night before getting up for a 7am journey out to the Great Wall saturday morning.
I was joined by my colleague Carolyn, and the two of us headed by car to the Mutianyu location of the great wall. Here we took one of two cable cars up and walked from that cable car stop to the other, roughly an hours walk. To anyone visiting this section of the wall, definitely take the red cable car, the one not associated with the toboggan up to the wall, and then walk to the other cable car or the toboggan for the downward trip. Doing it this way, you get more downhill than uphill. Trust me, that's a HUGE tip.
Anyway, the wall is simply stunning. Running right along the ridges of the mountains, it's quite amazing. What was more amazing was the lack of tourists. I have photos without another soul in them. That simply does not happen in China. We actually walked past the other chair lift and up a very steep section of the wall as far as they let tourists go. Well worth it but my sore legs say otherwise.
After the great wall, we headed to the Summer Palace, via the construction site of the "Birds nest", which is the Olympic Stadium in Beijing. Very cool to see, given I *hopefully* won't be here still during the Olympics. The Summer Palace is a pretty location with lots of temple-type buildings with names such as "Purple Heaven Hall" or "Hall of Virtuous Glories". Perhaps my favourite was "Bridge of Knowing the Fishes". Haha. We wandered around the expansive Palace area for the rest of the afternoon.
Saturday night we had a little Team China, Deloitte Perth dinner before meeting up with more colleague to paint the town red. This included my friend Sigi, from Austria. Was great to catch up with him again.
Sunday we headed to the Temple of Heaven, which was actually quite cool, which surprised me as i'm a little Temple'd out. After walking around there, we headed for Tiananmen Square then onwards to the Forbidden City. Beijing put on a belter of a day weather wise and it was very hot walking around. The other disappointing thing was that so much of Beijing is under construction in preparation for the Olympics. The larger of the halls/buildings/temples within the Forbidden City are all under construction so we couldn't have a good look. Never mind. Interesting to see anyway.
That just about wrapped up our day with an evening flight back to Changchun on the cards. Heading back to Shanghai next weekend so unless I discover a part of Shanghai I haven't seen to write about, there probably won't be an update. Still hoping to get to Xian next to see the Terracotta Warriors so stay tuned to see if I can make that work.
Lots of pics on photobucket to match this rather epic posting.
Hope you are all well, miss you all heaps.
Dave
