Beijing - Part 2

...After luging down from the Great Wall, we were at the halfway mark of our trip.  For the afternoon, we continued on with tour guide Skye to get some lunch at a very local place in a small village on the way back to Beijing.  On the menu and sampled by us, big steamed buns with donkey meat in them.  It did not taste like ass (joke courtesy of Alana S-R), but rather good, actually. 

After lunch we went to the Summer Palace on the outskirts of Beijing.  It's a large park complex with gardens, temples, pavilions, living quarters and a big lake that was the summer getaway for the Empress Dowager Cixi in the 1880's, but various parts are much older than that, and various parts have been ruined, ransacked, rebuilt, etc. over years of various wars. 

Skye told us many interesting things throughout our walk through the park, but now I don't remember much except that that Cixi also went by Dragon Lady (dragons are lucky so she was complimenting herself, not deprecating) and at one point she house-arrested the emperor, her nephew, in the Summer Palace for several years since she didn't like what he was doing. 

 

 

 

 

The frozen lake was open for ice skating and various other fun ice activities that the Land of 10,000 Lakes should totally get on board with.  There were chairs on runners, ice bikes, and ice bumper cars!



 

The big boat is made of marble and is only for show since it doesn't really float.

 

 

 

 

After the Summer Palace (in winter), we said goodbye to Skye....

 

 

She dropped us off at the gates of the Temple of Heaven for our second attempt at entry (that totally sounds like a teenager's euphemism), which was only partially successful.  We made it into the main grounds, but the entrance to the most famous part had just closed for the day so we could see the temple, but couldn't get all the way up to it.  Boo.  But it was still very pretty what we could see and the sun was going down so we stayed long enough to see the buildings get lit up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a long day of being outside, it was time to warm up with the popular hot pot for dinner.  While waiting for our table we got to have snacks, play games... I taught Tanya Chinese checkers, though I'm sure that's just a name Americans made up and I probably don't play it the right way.

 

Aside from games and snacks, once we sat down at our dining table, the restaurant also provided aprons and hair ties for a better hot pot experience.  Our boiling pot of two broths and all the ingredients we chose to cook in it were very good, though the red one was so spicy we ended up rinsing off everything we cooked in that side in the non-spicy side so we could handle it.

 

 

We didn't figure out how to order the super noodle for our hot pot, but enjoyed watching the noodle guy whipping around the dough to make one gigantic noodle at other tables.

 

Then it was time for bed and in the morning we squeezed out one last sight as we arrived at the Forbidden City just as it opened and had enough time to speed walk through the long compound and to the airport train to catch our flight.  Skye had given us the low down of how long it would take and shared that while it's big and famous, really after you've seen the first big main building, they're all about the same after that and so we wouldn't miss out by speeding through.

 

 

And that's it!  Beijing's greatest hits in 48 hours.  Thanks, Tanya, for being such a fun travel buddy (and for flushing timely)!  You are the best. :)

Beijing - The First 24 Hours

To end the whirlwind Asia tour in December with our MN visitors, Ms. Tanya and Ms. Chandra went to Beijing for the weekend. (again, photo credits to Tanya as this post is a mix of both of our pics)

 

 

We arrived late afternoon on day 1 and checked into our super cute hotel and left to see some sights pronto.  The clock was ticking on our less than 48 hours.  We were within walking distance of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  Due to past, ahem, incidents, of which you cannot speak when in China, the area around the square and the Forbidden City are heavily secured and you must go through airport style screening a few points along the way.  But the walk was nice and the night view was pretty.

 



Tiananmen Square and Monument to the People's Heroes







This is the Tiananmen Tower Gate to the Forbidden City, which was closed already for the day, so we went on our last morning. I like this mama lion playing with her cub while fiercely keeping watch over Mao's picture.

 

 

Next was dinner-- while in the birthplace of Peking duck, you must eat Peking duck.  The waitress demonstrated all the ways you use the different condiments, little buns and pancakes to make delicious little duck sandwiches and duck wraps.  Crispy roasted duck skin dipped in sugar?  Sounds gross, but so good.

 

Love this picture of the duck chefs carefully examining a fresh out of the fire duck.

 

 

Dessert was fun with a tiny caramel apple wrapped in cotton candy in a pot of fake grass, coconut pudding with dry ice flair.

 

After dinner we attempted to go to the Temple of Heaven, but took a left turn instead of a right turn coming out of the subway and ended up on a reeeeeeeally long scenic walk, finally admitted defeat and cabbed it back to the hotel.

 

Day 2 was the big day, my first Wonders of the World sighting!  We arranged a private guide and driver to go outside Beijing for the first half of the day to the Mu Tian Yu section of the Great Wall of China.  Our guide was a nice woman named Skye who was full of fun facts and good recommendations.

We took a chair lift up the hill, and here you can see the luge track that later we get to ride back down.

Love this pic that Skye took while riding the lift behind us.

 We walked the length through several of the watchtowers, up and down slopes and ancient steps for about two hours. 

 

 

There's something written in the hill with stones, but now I forget what.

 

 

Despite the drab foliage and pesky smog, the views were quite spectacular and it was pretty amazing to see the scale of the wall.  Construction of the wall was no easy feat and so it is also known as the longest cemetery.  If you were a prisoner sent to work on the wall who died before your sentence was up, your family had to send another member to complete the sentence.  But never mind all the human suffering, time for selfies!

 

To guard the wall, you shoot your cannon through the bigger gap, and shoot arrows down through the smaller hole.

 

Time to bore you with more of my favorite pics. 

 

 

 

While it might look like romantic fog, it's actually disgusting smog.  I've said it once and I'll say it again, even if global warming is a hoax (which it's not), can't we all agree that pollution is gross and not fun to breathe in?

 

 

Skye offered up good photo tips for my phone after the battery went dead on my camera (poor planning on my part), but made for some pretty filtered photos.

 

 

And then it was time to luge down the hill, wheeeee!

 

 

Tanya breaks the rules and snaps pics while riding.  She managed to get me in the pic coming up behind her.

 

 

 

Coming in for a landing on the first 24 hours and I'll have to cover the second 24 hours in a second post it seems...