The days here in Beijing has been nice and we've seen what we intended to. Beijing is just so huge and it is impossible to do everything, but here is a short description of our themes so far.
The Forbidden City!
It was once the forbidden city for the citizens, and that was back in time where the Emperor enjoyed to be in power. Today it is for sure not forbidden anymore, more likely it is the "obkigatory" place to visit for all tourists comming to Beijing.
We went on a Friday to avoid the wweekend crowds. But there is also something like a Friday crowd, or if this was just normal, I'm really glad we didn't go on a Saturday. The Masses streaming through the entrances gates was really impressive, thousands of people tiptoeing in rows to the ticket stalls, and then into the "Forbidden" city. Thank god the place is huge, and most of the chinese tourists just walked through the center line of this impressive complex, so there was enough of space for us to dwell and find some peace and relaxing spots to try to comprehend this enormous place.
It is worth a visit after all, just be aware that the place is big beyound belief, and that you just can't see all of it.
The Olympic Center!
We found our way there on our own using the Beijing Metro. To qwalk towards the Birds nest Stadium was an incredible feeling. If you remember some of my posts from the time of the Olympic, you maybe remember that we douldn't see it on our tellie in Hong Kong at that time. But now we've been there and been in it, and that was not bad -just to use a bit of my farmland expressions, which infact means that I was over the moon. It is now open to visitors, and for the price of about 5 Euros you can enter this place and spend a whole afternoon in there if you want. All the lower spectator seats and the running track are open for people to stroll around and do their little picknic or ball game or whart ever, just it is peacefull and doesn't disturb or ruin anything. The whole area called the Olimpic Green is like everything else in Beijing; HUGE, so plan time for this trip and be sure to wear shoes that is confortable and bring water.
The Great Wall!
3 hours busride outside, we entered the Wall at Jinshanling and had to hike about 8 kilometers to Simatai where we got picked up again by the bus bringimng us back. About 4 hours we had time to walk tis distance, but we sure needed that, as the wall is -or can be- kind of a challenge with it's quite steep slopes and higs steps. Around 30 watchtowers we would pass on the way before crossing a large suspension bridge over a lake. In ancient times the wall was built to keep the evil and hostile Mongolians out. Now they are ON thewall, trying to sell book's, t-shirts, postcards and drinks to all the visitors, and if you are friendly to them they'll follow you until their section of the wall ends, and others take over. So if they haven't been succesfull with their stories of the hard life they have before the "boarder" they get quite desperate at the end to get you to buy a book or a t-shirt. I get really angry whem forced to buy something, so even if 10 or 20 yuan isn't much, and could save their day, then after we've crossed the imaginare "boarder" the next horde would just start th swirl around you, offering the same things.
All in all, it was a fantastic hike and we were sweating and really hungry after the 4 hours, and do not be scared about my story about the "salesmen", the expierince of being on the great wall, the scenery and the hike was really worth the trouble.
I hope to be able to upload some of the photos later.
That's it for now, see you later.
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