So for my Beijing trip...
Well I went there mainly because I was visiting my grandparents. I didn’t do any shopping this time. Anyway, there wasn’t anything much to shop for around the place I stayed at.
Day 1:
My mum, Henry and I headed for Beijing and the flight was about 2 hours long. It wasn’t that bad and I slept for the most of the flight. We were quite lucky to depart on time since China’s airport is well known for delayed flights. When we landed, my grandparents picked us up and we stayed at their home. We didn’t do much that day and after eating dinner I just went to sleep.
Day 2:
It was raining the whole day so we just stayed at home. And did nothing.
Day 3:
I saw blue skies. Now that’s a really rare sight in Beijing. It was probably because of a whole day of rain the previous day.
We woke up at about 5.45am because we were going for a tour to the Great Wall (长城) and the Dingling Tomb (定陵)
I swear to Buddha the tour guides in Beijing are cheaters. They claim that they visit place A, place B and place C but when the bus comes to pick you up to another meeting place, the tour guide says that you are only going to place A. Like seriously? And the tour guides are so unorganized that even after you “confirmed” the details with them, they call you again and again to confirm the details with you. They even called us at 3am in the morning to ask if we were going for the flag raising ceremony. And I’m like, what flag raising? Didn’t we tell you that we aren’t going already? The tours are just soooooooo messed up.
You wanna get rich in future? Start a tour company in Beijing which is good and doesn’t cheat their customers.
Anyway, when we found out that we weren’t going to the Dingling Tomb, mum suggested that we should go to the Forbidden City since it was within walking distance from where we were.
Forbidden City (故宫) consists of the Tiananmen/”Gate of Heavenly Peace”(天安门) which is basically a gate and there’s this picture of Mao Zedong. Then, there’s the Forbidden City which is the place where Emperors and Empresses used to live. The place was really huge. At certain rooms, you could see the Emperor’s or Empress’ throne or his or her bed.
Tiananmen.
Forbidden City
The Emperor's throne
At night, we went to a restaurant to eat Peking duck. If you go to Beijing, you should definitely eat the Peking duck. Basically, they cut some pieces of meat and skin off the duck, you dip it in a dark sauce, and wrap it up in a type of springroll skin. It’s really good.
After we got home from dinner, I went to sleep.
Day 4:
We got up early again, about 5am in hopes of joining a decent tour group. Mum called the tour group and the tour group said that the bus will only come at about 7am. They promised that they will call 30 minutes before the bus arrives. After I went back to sleep, mum called us up and said that we only have 15 minutes before the bus comes. You see how screwed up the tour groups are? So, I had to do a speed makeup. I looked terrible.
We ate breakfast on the bus. When we got to the meeting place, the tour guide claimed that we weren’t going to the Dingling Tomb so Mum got pissed off again. I think they are probably too arrogant because they think that they are in the capital of China. The truth is, tour groups at other places of attraction, but just as popular, like Xian is much better and organized than the Beijing tour groups.
We then headed home because my grandparents could bring us to the Summer Palace (颐和园). After we got home, my mum called a friend from her university. Fortunately, her friend suggested that her driver could drive us to the Great Wall and the Dingling Tomb.
I was actually surprised that she still has really good friends who will help her out. I seriously need to reevaluate my life and think about who I can ask help from when I need it.
Anyway, we took my mum’s friend’s car to the Great Wall first. Basically, the Great Wall is just a very long wall that the Qin Emperor built to keep invading Mongols out. When we got there, we actually still had to take a shuttle bus to the cable car entrance. There was a really long queue. Very interestingly, most of the tourists there are Chinese, and I only saw 1 or 2 foreigners.
We queued for almost 2 hours for the cable car. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind climbing up the entire Great Wall if I had time. But I guessed that my mum and Henry won’t want to climb it.
After we took the cable car up, we climbed up the Badaling (八达岭). I know, it’s really annoying when Chinese names are just translated into their Chinese spelling for their English name. The Badaling is the most visited section of the Great Wall. It wasn’t all steps like how I imagined, there were both steep slopes and steps.
The time we spent climbing the Badaling was even shorter than the time we spent queuing up for the cable car ride. And there were just soooooooooooooo many people it’s crazy. I suggest if you’re planning to go to the Great Wall, find a good tour group that will bring you to a more remote place.
Yup those are people fighting to get on the bus.
We took the cable car back down and had a simple lunch.
We then went to the Dingling Tomb. It is one of the 13 Ming Dynasty Tombs and it is the only one that was open. We went to this underground palace where there were “coffins” of the emperor and empresses. Of course, there isn’t anything in the coffin. After secretly listening to other tour guides, the reason that the bodies were gone was because of the Cultural Revolution. Apparently, Mao doesn’t like “old culture” and so he got his people to burnt all the bodies and real coffins. There weren’t as many people compared to the Great Wall at the Dingling Tomb because many of the lousy tour groups don’t come here. It’s about a 30 minute drive from the Great Wall I think. I’m not very sure because I was sleeping in the car. But the Great Wall is really far out from the city area so since you were already at the Great Wall, you should go to the Dingling Tomb too.
That's the "coffin".
After a long and tiring day, we finally headed home. I would say that Day 3 was even more tiring than Day 4 I don’t know why. And oh yeah, I don’t get why my mum packs only like 2 or 3 500ml water bottles in her bag. It’s definitely not enough. I was so dehydrated; every time I got home, I gulped down like 5 cups of water.
Had dinner at home.
Sleep.
Day 5:
No more blue skies. Beijing is well-known for its horrible air quality and pollution.
My grandparents, together with my mum, Henry, and I, went to the Summer Palace. It was where Empress Dowager Cixi stayed in summer, and in one room, she locked Emperor Guangxu up, opposing to his Hundred Days of Reform.
We actually rented a paddle boat. Of course, Henry and I were paddling but Henry was only paddling half of the time. It was pretty foggy because it rained for a while but it got better when we started paddling on the river. We paddled for about an hour and then we headed for the estates.
Lazy Henry not paddling.
After walking around the Summer Palace, we went to a restaurant for lunch. It was pretty good. Grandparents ordered Dandan noodles for us (担担面) and it was pretty good. It’s actually from Sichuan. All Sichuan food is really spicy. I’m not a great fan of spicy stuff because my face is really prone to acne and eating spicy food will only make it worse. But it was pretty good.
Dandan noodles.
In the afternoon, we went to the Beijing Olympic Park to visit the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Since the sky color was grey and really ugly, all my photos turned out exceptionally ugly too. I think I need macro lenses cos I had trouble getting the whole Bird’s Nest stadium in at some angles. Hmmm. I took pictures inside the stadiums and yeah. I don’t know why, but being in these stadiums made me feel really moved. I just don’t know why. I wanted to visit these stadiums at night because I thought that the lighting will make the stadiums look prettier but mum says no. So no.
Anyway, Dad joined us for dinner. We ate Peking duck again. I actually don’t like it when they save some parts of the duck to deep fry it. I couldn’t taste any meat left on it at all. The next time, I’m just gonna ask them to cut off the entire duck.
Mum and Dad went to a hotel since they got invited for a wedding lunch the next day. I stayed at home with Henry and my grandparents. I talked to my old friend since I was really bored but I really didn’t have anyone else to talk to anyway. Talking to old friends make me feel good. But of course, most of the time, it’s me starting the conversations. So that kinda sucks.
I couldn’t sleep that night and I was bored, so I recorded a voice memo of Henry snoring. Lol.
I finally went to bed after this old friend of mine wanted to sleep.
Day 6:
Packed my stuff in the morning and got ready to head back to Shanghai.
Ate lunch at a western restaurant. It was actually better than I had expected. I liked the pizza. But the steak was nothing close to the huge steak I ate at Bobby Van’s in Washington.
Met up with parents and went to the airport.
My flight got delayed for 2 hours. I was pissed. I just wanted to get home. Google says that at Beijing, “82% of flights (fail) to leave on time”.
When we finally got home, I chatted with Vicky and Hannah on Facebook. Sigh, I miss Vicky.
Anyway, that’s all for my Beijing trip. I probably will go to Beijing again only after 10+ years. It really has its pros and cons.
Pros: The Great Wall, and other awesome, ancient tourist attractions. Not forgetting, the Peking duck.
Cons: WAYYYYY too many people, horrible air quality and color, horrible traffic, and the flight delays.
