Our last stop, Beijing.
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| Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee |
We caught the high speed train (equivalent to Japanese
shinkansen) from
PingYao after 3 days frolicking there. As previously mentioned, we got the first class tickets, and to be honest I couldn’t really tell the difference between second and first class, neither did my mum or Fabs.
Accommodation
We stayed in 3 accommodations in Beijing. One hotel and 2 Air BnBs.
Hotel:
Prime Hotel Beijing
We took a taxi from train station to our accommodation. By now accustomed to spacious accommodations in Xi’An and PingYao, I was aghast when we got in and saw only 2 single beds. After much going back and fro they installed another single bed in the packed room. I was not happy; and made a big deal out of it, which now in hindsight it was my fault for not checking the photos of the hotel’s “family room”, instead booked it solely based on recommendation. And the staff actually tried to accommodate us, which now made feel bad.
Air BnB No. 1
Located in Dongcheng, it was close to Beijing’s highlights and walking distance to the subway. Residential areas in Beijing are located in a space called ‘community’, which are rows and rows of apartment towers. Many looked impoverished from the outside but the interior itself actually quite decent. This was the case with our 2-bedroom apartment. I took the area to be middle class based on the many BMWs loitered around the block.
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| Close to park where a lot of ladies practiced their skills |
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| Why bother seeing a show for $$$ when you can see them for free in the park?! |
Air BnB No. 2
We had to book this accommodation last minute, because our
Chinese travel agent messed up our train tickets. We were to leave on the K3 train to Mongolia, but we were told that it has sold out. As there are only 3 trains leaving Beijing to Mongolia every week, this meant we would need to spend additional 3 nights in Beijing. HOWEVER, we met a guy in our accommodation in Ulaanbaatar which was in
that train and said it wasn’t the case, since there were many empty carriages!
After we dropped off my mum at the airport, we moved to this one-bedroom apartment located near the Olympic Park. I loved it on the first sight; the living area was well decorated to make it feel really homey. But good God, the kitchen was disgusting (which we actually cooked in). It was close to the shopping centre with a MASSIVE supermarket, which was handy as we needed supplies for our 27 hours’ train ride to Ulaanbaatar. We stayed ‘home’ the whole 3 days lazing around, much needed rest after our China’s whirlwind adventure.
Sights
Lama temple
Lama as in Dalai Lama, this Tibetan Buddhist temple felt like a labyrinth of many temples within its complex. Just when we thought we made it to the end of the temple, we saw openings to another temple. Until we reached this larger than life Buddha statue.
Upon entering the temple, there’s a kiosk handing out incense, making this temple full of smoke stinging the eyes.
Confucius temple
As the name suggests, this temple/museum dedicated to the famous Confucius. It housed his ashes and his ancestors’ as well detailing his life journey from a mere human to one’s worth worshiping.
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| Mumfucius |
After Confucius, my mum were done with temples. She told me she would be keen to go if she could actually touch the Gods (in a temple) and furniture (in a museum), else we shouldn't bother. My sentiment exactly.
Dadong Peking Duck
I was looking for “Taste of Dadong” which is located in another shopping mall, but instead Google map directed me to “Dadong – taste of Yunan” which turned out to have the best Peking duck in the whole of China if not the world.
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| There are heaps of other Dadongs branded Peking Duck |
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| Fancy as peking duck |
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| Our own chef |
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| Unbelievably so gooooooooooddddd |
To support my verdict, there were many awards plastered all over the wall of the restaurant.
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| Looks legit |
Needless to say, we left the restaurant happy and fulfilled!
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| Another day another duck feast - this was actually taken in another restaurant. |
Tiananmen Square & the Forbidden Palace
How ironic is it, the square where countless waves of revolutions ignited is located directly in front of a (former) harem?
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| The square |
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| Teemed with tourists, fortunately the area are so vast it didn’t feel too jammed pack |
To preserve the inside appearance of the palace, the pavilions are gated. I couldn’t bring myself to squeeze among the plethora of tourists so I could glimpse of how the kings and queens used to live and rule the whole of China from these rooms.
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| How they looked like |
My mum though, still has it in her; she fought her way through by elbowing the other crazed tourists to reach the front of the gate. After all that, she declared that historical must meant ‘dusty’ since all the rooms needed a good thorough clean.
Temple of Heaven
As heaven should be larger than the earth, this temple turned museum covered a greater area than the Forbidden Palace. Which equates to enormous.
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| Different looking temple |
It has beautiful rose garden which delighted my mum and gave Fabs plenty of opportunities to photobombed her photos.
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| One of many photobombed photos |
One feature that amazed me, was this circular stone located in the middle of the (used to be) sacrificial altar. When standing upon it, I could hear my voice amplified and echoed as if I was using a microphone – but it was only heard that way by me!
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| We all found it as extraordinary and an architectural marvel! |
Shopping Street Wangfujing
This night market was really busy selling all sort of food and souvenirs clearly targeted for tourists.
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| Smell quite strong of stinky tofu |
As we strolled further down the lane, I realised for the same type of food, they were cheaper the further in the market we walked!
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| A (whole) leg of lamb - nom! |
Summer Palace
Located an hour away from the city centre, this Summer Palace last housed Mao’s political friends and the famous dowager queen Cixi.
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| Can you spot Fabs!? |
There’s a manmade lake inside the palace where we caught a 5 minutes ferry across before we got too exhausted to explore further as it seems the Chinese loved their palaces to be as huge as possible; deemed it impossible to walk the entire complex in one day.
Tianjin – Great Wall
We timed our Beijing trip to coincide with the Great Wall Marathon. When I researched China’s main event in May, the race came up and Fabs straight away wanted to participate. I calmed him down and succeeded in convincing him to do the half marathon instead of the full marathon and managed to sign him up as a local so he didn’t have to join the tour required for foreign participants.
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| It was a good call; since on the day of the race it was a hot 35°C (it was 40°C the day before!), muggy and weather app said Air Quality wasn’t the greatest. |
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| Looks pretty tough! |
We left the bulk of our luggage back in Beijing and journeyed for 1.5 hours to
Marriott Hotel Jixian where the designated bus would pick us up on the race day. Again, it only had 2 beds in one room albeit both were queen sized beds. When we checked in, contingents of ‘athletes’ arrived by bus loads – the foreign participants, mainly from New Zealand and Australia.
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| Almost 100% foreigners |
I thought I had prepaid the hotel in full, but turned out I hadn’t. I also didn’t have my passport, having previously left it in Mongolian embassy to get my visa back in Beijing (for how to get Mongolian visa in Beijing,
click here). Amidst the confusion with the payment, passport and hustle and bustle, I forgot my hat with my beloved (prescript) sunglasses inside it at the reception.
I only noticed they were missing the next day and went to retrieve it. As shown in the video below, this chick came to the reception 5 minutes before me (!) and took my sunglasses, claimed it to be her own. When she was offered my hat as well, she shook her head and bolted.
Sayonara sunglasses, least I got my hat back. On the brighter side, Fabs completed his race with me and mum cheered on the sideline beamed with pride.
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| Fabs' sunnies doesn't look as good as mine... |
Note
Beijing is a vast city. Don’t be fooled by the map, places might look nearby but they’re not! We had many failed attempts hailing a taxi, unknown why to us. We flailed and flailed but none stop. And when they did, once they realised we couldn’t convey our destination in Mandarin, told us to get out (using body language) and drove off.
On our last days in Beijing, I managed to use “
Didi”: the Chinese version of Uber, but on steroids. It has taxi, cars, car sharing, and car rental! Actually, it bought Uber China to eliminate its competition. I previously downloaded it in
Jiuzhaigou but it was all in Mandarin, so I uninstalled it. But the idea of walking around in the subway with our massive bags wasn't that appealing to me. So 3 days before we left Beijing, I tried it again and the app has been updated! The updated version enabled users to switch language to English.
I said ‘see yous’ to my mum in the airport, crying my eyes out.
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| Regular occurrence |
It had been a great trip, and China will forever have a special place in my heart. It has taught and shown me many great things: its amazing landscape, the people, the food, the glamorous cities and to top of it all, I had the best time with my mum.
Time to fulfill another dream: travelling through Mongolia and Russia via the infamous Trans-Siberian!
