Sara's travelogue Beijing

Sara's travelogue Beijing

Sara is a Kiwi,here I pasted her emails, some of you guys might find them helpful


Hi

I'm now in Beijing and loving it, there is so much to see and do.

My sleeper bus from Shanghai wasn't actually that bad and they played 2 good movies. The second one was 'House of Flying Daggers' which I saw on the news the other day was actually up for some foreign film award.

Got to Bejing about 10am, dumped my bags and headed to Tianamen Square which was a bit of a dissapointment, it's not very big. Everyone here has said they felt the same. I also went to the Forbidden City which was amazing. On the way home I ran into Hannah and her family who were on their way to the Forbidden City, it was quite funny because I recognised the scarf she made first.

The first night there was only 1 other person in my room, a Korean girl who couldn't speak English so we had to speak in Chinese which was quite funny.

The next day I went to 3 different Hutong areas (the narrow old streets where some people still live.) It was a really nice day just walking through. I walked for over 5 hours. I also went to the Bell and Drum Tower and to the shopping area which has a side street with lots of food. Next time I go I might have scorpion on a stick.

Yesterday I went to the Summer Palace which is really beautiful, the lake was frozen so you could walk across it. At first I just walked around it because I thought knowing my luck I'd fall and hurt something, but then I decided to brave it and walked realy slowly. I then went to the Old Summer Palace - anyone coming to Beijing in winter DO NOT GO!!! It is a demonic wasteland and I hated it, threw a trantrum and left. They are doing a lot of work on it, there's no plants because it's too cold and there's no water in the lakes.

A group of us then went out for Beijing duck for dinner, we had a really delicious meal, and it wasn't very expensive at all. We went with a Chinese couple, Jackie works here so they showed us a good cheap place to go.

Today I decided to have a lazy day becasue I was walking from 9am-5pm yesterday. I went to Lama Temple and to the Confucian Temple and College. Later I'll go and see the change of guard at Tianamen Square and go to a night market.

Don't know what I'm up to tomorrow but on Friday I'm going to the great wall. I'm going to do the 4 hour walk along the wall from Jinshanling to Simatai. Apparently it's quite a hard walk but well worth the pain. In Shanghai a guy showed me his pictures of the walk and it looks really steep so I'm a bit worried.

Leaving today for Xi'an, just spending some time at the hostel before I head to the airport. I still don't understand why my bag is so full when I think about all the stuff I bought out with me - though Dad did pack the bag so more was forced in than what I could have done. Today I threw out my hairdrier (god knows why I bought it I haven't used it) and my Lonely Planet book - minus the sections I need and it's still so full.

Been less hectic since last time I emailed, I slowed down a bit and stopped try to do so much in a day as there was no need because I was here for so long.

Went to Lama Temple and the Confucian Temple and Imperial College one day, it was quite nice, but I'm a bit templed-out.

The next day I went to see Mao, which I rated quite highly. I don't agree with a lot of what he did but what he did was so large scale it was pretty impressive. Anyway, he's looking good for someone who has been dead for 30 years. Unfortuneatly you can't get very close to him and have a really good look, and he looked a little orange due to some bad lighting. Then I went to the Natural History Museum, which was very weird. Lots of pictures of naked westerners from the 70's, women with Farrah Fawcett hair and men with handle-bar moustaches.

The day after that was my big walk to the wall. I walked from Jinshanling to Simatai, it's about 10km and took us 4 1/2 hours, you pass 28 towers. The wall and towers are falling down in parts. It was absolutly amazing , the best thing I've done so far. The first third was ok because you just started and your walking up to the wall along a valley, the second third nearly killed me as it was the highest part and the steepest - about a 70 degree incline on steeps that were falling apart (or not even there). It also started to snow at this stage. Then the last third was pretty much down hill. I took over 50 photos.

The next day I didn't plan to do much as I didn't think I'd be able to move, but I was actually fine so I went to Tiananmen Square again to take photos because it was really sunny and then went to the main Museum.

On Sunday I was going to go to a big weekend market but then discovered part way there how far away it actually was, so I found a cafe and had lunch, then went for a walk instead.

On Monday I headed off to the Pearl Market, and within a minute I see Heidi with her mum and sister! So we spent a few hours shopping in the market, then had lunch and went to the Temple of Heaven together, took lots of photos with Heidi and Glen.

Yesterday I went to Liulichang, which is an area which sells 'antiques' I bought a few small picutes of old Chinese cigarette ads, which were RMB$2 each. Then at night I went to a food market and tried slik worm on a stick - it doesn't taste good!! They look like brown huhu grubs, I little crunchy on the outside and mushy in the middle (sorry Linda). I ate 2 and threw the rest away.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Terricotta Warriors, then I'll see what else there is to do in Xi'an.

Love from Sara