BEIJING, BEIJING

(C) Our first taste of Beijing, after our taxi ride from the airport, was dragging our luggage 2 blocks through narrow alleyways called hutongs in one of the old parts of Beijing. We had booked to stay at a traditional courtyard style hotel ( Courtyard 7 recommended by Lonely Planet) which was very pleasant and quiet. The hotel was just down from south luogu lane, a very popular hutong street with shops, eateries and The Pass By Bar. This was mostly a pedestrian street being narrow and cobblestones. I say mostly as the occasional car still passed by, not to mention bikes and rickshaws with tourists on board. We spent 3 nights here before moving to another hotel down the other end of the forbidden city for the beginning of our tour. The rickshaw drivers were always very keen to encourage you to go on one if their rather overpriced tours through the hutongs. One even offered to take us to our new hotel for 200RMB. Not a particularly good deal considering the taxi we caught was only about 30RMB. we were quite amused with the visual of how we would have fit with all our luggage with only a seat for 2 small butts. He must be crazy to think it was possible.

The Temple of. Heaven was situated south of the Forbidden City in the middle of parklands. It was one of the few places in Beijing where you didn't have to go through a security check. What a stunnng building particularly with the gorgeous blue sky. On our way to the restaurant from there our guide took us through an area of the park that was a popular place for mothers to meet with the purpose of networking with each other with the aim of matchmaking and setting up introductions of suitable dates for their son or daughter to give them a bit of a kick start.

We had some great chinese food in Beijing including Kung Pao spicy chicken with peanuts, whole bbq squid on a stick, goat kebabs, toffee strawberry kebabs, the chinese version of french fries that looked like a huge nest of noodles but was actually very finely julienne potatoes fried and of course the famous Beijing duck. And thats just to name a few.

(J) I have been led to believe, by our guide, that we were blessed in Beijing with beautiful blue skies for two consecutive days. They happened to be the days we visited the forbidden city and the wall...how good is that!
The rest of the time it was rather grey and cold. The smog that we had read about before arriving maybe not as bad as it had been. There are a lot of people wearing face masks and in any crowd there is always that lovely hacking sound to be heard. Notably the parents seemed to ensure their young ones had the masks. In the middle class single child families, the kids are called the little emporers & empresses, given they are all so spoilt.
We seemed to be haunted by red Mazda 6's. As a proud owner I noticed one on the first day and then another and another until by our last day there seemed to be no other car on the road. There must have been a huge sale a few years ago as they are all the same model as my own....the red is a bit brighter....you can have any colour you like as long as it is red (the happy colour in China).
We are being harassed by the Obama woman. Her schedule and ours are crossing regularly. At the forbidden city there was a big hold up. We thought the locals were making room for us, but alas, it seems everyone was being stopped from entering whilst the First Lady did her rounds. There was a nice photo of her waving to the crowds in the forbidden city in the local paper the next day....I can tell ya that didn't happen, no one was able to get within cooee of the place.
We are on the way to Xian to see the terracotta warriors by overnight train and she is on our tail, no doubt her helicopter will land in time to stop us getting in.
The wall was right up there as an experience. The forbidden city was good, as was the summer palace. The city museum was a commemorative to Mao. We witnessed the drumming at the drum tower (now I know where jemba jemba comes from!) and took a bullet train ride to Tianjin, which was wet and 5 degrees colder than the capital....that was the day the mariners played in Beijing at the workers stadium...not the birds nest....it was a bit too far away and a bit too cold after a long day.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, given the amount of traffic in cars, bikes etc, the principle mode of transport in the capital, for us, was walking. Yes we tried the metro, yes we caught a bus, but for the most part it was walk to this and walk to that.
We have dined on all manner of local cuisine thanks to our guide Little Dragon (aka Frank) who has been a convivial host. The food is a lot spicier than I was expecting, which for me has been a bonus. We have been through more security checks and passport checks than I care to remember, but I guess that is a reflection of what has been going down in this country and elsewhere of late.

(C) Our daytrip to the Great Wall is right up there with our top travel experiences just like our gondola ride in venice but with a different kind of wow. We visited the Mutianyu section. We had 3 hours to spend there so when given the choice of walk up a few hundred metre elevation to get it or ride the cable car we decided to save our energy for walking on the wall. There was writing on the window of our cable car to tell us that Bill Clinton had also been in this car. There was some large chinese characters on the side of the mountain so we asked Frank if they said Hollywood. He laughed. They read 'Loyal to Mao'. We arrived at Tower 14 and walked to Tower 19. Frank had suggested we walk to Tower 20 but as they weren't numbered we lost count. Aftwr our ver steep climb to Tower 20 we headed back and walked down to base from Tower 8. Absolutely an incredible day.

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