GREAT WALL of CHINA

Our last day in Beijing was a Saturday so Jeff had the day off, and we finally were able to do some sight seeing together. First up was an hour and a half drive outside the city to see the Great Wall of China. This was by far the thing I was most excited to see!

All smiles and feeling good. . . we took a cable car up to this point.

We were at the Mutianyu Great Wall section.

Here's a map of this section of the wall. We rode the cable car up to Post 14 where the double hashed line is there in the center. Then we went to our left. You can see the path starts out a little flat, dips down, and then does a steady climb up. . .yeah, it was painful !! Then we had to walk all that way back when we were finished. Did I mention is was like 90 degrees out at 10:30am when we started?!?

Here's the start of our journey. We walked all the way on
the wall that you can see in this picture and then some!

Another shot of the wall showing how it moves up and down with the mountains.

Here's where the wall takes a steep turn uphill!!

Trying to contain my excitement to climb all the stairs behind me!

So so so many stairs!!! Seriously when are we going to make it to the top?!?

Well 472 stairs later and we made it to the top! Well not exactly, but we made it to the end of the restored part of the wall. It actually keeps going up and over the mountain. They say you're not supposed to go any further (see the picture below) for your own safety, but there are still people who go exploring there. I went a little of the way with Jeff, but seriously it was MORE steps and I was dying at this point so I left him to go exploring a little further ahead without me. Keep in mind the 472 steps were just one section. We easily probably climbed twice that just going one way on the wall !!

The sign reads "No tourist section. Please do not pass." Yeah, we didn't listen.

Here's where Jeff went up even further on the unrestored part of the wall. You can see how the stone looks different and a lot of the battlements on the walls have fallen down. See the stones in the grass behind him on the left? Now look back at the first picture of us with the wall and see how far we went !!

Oh yeah I get to walk back down ALL those stairs!!

Yep, we can't even see where we started !!

What else to do on the Great Wall of China but to enjoy a
cold satisfying beer after coming back down the very steep part with all those stairs!!

It may be hard to tell but my face is beat red at this point and we are
 dripping with sweat, but somehow we still manage a smile as we come
to the end of our journey on the Great Wall of China. It was so cool to see!!

After we got back to our hotel we showered and rested a little bit. Then we headed out to see Tiananmen Square (no good pictures of that) and the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty. The complex consists of about 980 buildings and took 15 years to build. It is surrounded by a 26 ft high wall and 171 ft moat. Today the complex is full of a lot of historical artifacts.

Here's one of the ceremonial halls within the Forbidden City.

The moat and part of the outside wall

The main gate to the Forbidden City at night 

A picture of a picture of the Forbidden City from above

All in all I am glad we were able to go to Beijing and see the sights, but I think one trip is enough for me. It's really a crowded dirty city with over 20 million people and a lot of smog with all the air pollution. There are so many people driving that everyone is assigned one week day where they are not allowed to drive and it changes every three months. It was definitely neat, though, to see some of the historical sights, especially the Great Wall.

Authentic Chinese Dinner in Beijing

Jeff and I were staying in an American chain hotel while in Beijing. They had a huge breakfast spread covering several ethnicity's cuisines. Most days I filled up here before I went out sight-seeing so I wouldn't be too hungry. My tour guide did well finding me American food during the day when we did get hungry. I didn't want to leave China though without trying something new. I had just the chance when we went out to dinner with Jeff's coworkers. They took us out for a nice authentic Chinese dinner.

Ready for dinner!

Chinese lanterns up and down both sides of the street

Nothing like a Chinese beer to start things off!
NOTE - We had to request cold beers because it's not uncommon to drink them at room temperature!

Perusing the menu. . . yes it's more like a giant pictures book!
Thank goodness for the pictures, because I didn't know what most things were!

Now I may have been able to peruse the menu for a few minutes, but I didn't do any ordering. As is customary in Asian culture Jeff's coworker ordered for the table. Then everything is served basically family style and you serve yourself. I tried to take pictures of all the foods so you could see what things looked like.

Jellyfish - the WORST thing I've ever eaten in my life!!! Definitely didn't think I was going to be able to swallow the one bite I tried.  Thankfully Jeff was the only one who saw me gag!

Marinated eggplant with peppers was really good.

Lotus plant - Jeff and I were both indifferent on this one. It wasn't great, but
not terrible. . .  really just a bland dish you didn't want to keep eating.

Kind of like cashew chicken at home with a kick. It was quite tasty!

These fresh green beans were so yummy! I could have eaten the whole bowl.

Now for the main courses!!

First up . . . Squirrel Fish!!
Looks frightening, but was surprisingly delicious!

You can see that they serve it with the mouth of the fish wide open.... quite a presentation!!

Second - PEKING DUCK, a Beijing specialty!!!
The chef comes to your table and must have a masters degree in carving skills!
As smooth as ever he trims every last piece of meat off the duck for the beautiful presentation shown below.

Here is the carved duck presented after it's been carved.

You can see in the picture above to the top left of the duck are some white tortilla looking things. These are little rice wraps that you use to make a little duck burrito :)  There are three different sauces provided which you can see in the picture below. Then you have the option to put in some cucumber, melon, lettuce, or pineapple with your duck. It was soooo yummy!!! I've never had duck before and this was so delicious!! Just looking at these pictures makes me want to enjoy it again!!

Here's another shot of all the fixings for the duck wraps.

Jeff enjoying his duck!!

What's for dessert?! Chocolate? No. Ice cream? Nope.

How about a warm sweet yam!?!

You think I'm kidding, but I most definitely am not!

Looks tasty, huh?! :)
Actually not too bad, just not what I envision about when I hear the word dessert.

Now this post wouldn't be complete unless I showed you some pictures of food from the local markets around our hotel in downtown Beijing. I have to say that people eat some very interesting things that I would definitely not ever be interested in trying!

Starfish, sea horses and live scorpions on a stick. . . .so creepy!!

There's an entire street lined with vendors where you pick what you want and they fry it up for you right there. There were people everywhere eating all this stuff!

Baby sharks, octopus and who knows what else!

 Spiders, medicinal centipede (as if there's any other kind?!), 

snake, sheep penis, and water beetles. Hungry?!?!  :(

I think I'll just settle for a nice protein bar ! 

Neither Jeff nor I had the desire to be adventurous
 enough to try any of these foods.

The Sights in Beijing - Part 2

Day 3 my tour guide took me to see a couple more popular parks in the city, which meant more stairs to climb!!

Another temple in the center of the garden to climb to the top!

 This temple however did have a great view looking out to the Forbidden City (more on this later). It also claims to be at the center of Beijing City.

The view looking out towards the Forbidden City.

I love all the weeping willow trees around the water.

Here's a picture of my tour guide. Her American name is Queena (seriously!).
She really was a sweet girl for taking me all over the city for several days!!

The Nine-Dragon Wall in Beihai Park

You can see how wide it is here. There is the exact same depiction on both sides.

I was stopped by some university students and interviewed about my first impressions as an American in Beijing for the first time. I'm sure my interview received quite the ratings :)

Fashion?!? There really are no words for this!!  Yikes!
I saw it in a boutique window and couldn't help but taking a quick picture.
Jeff's quote, "Keep your hands off my monkeys!" haha

The Sights in Beijing - Part 1

I never thought China would be on the list of places we would get to travel ! Jeff had to go visit the Beijing office the last week of June, so I decided to tag along for some sight seeing. I was a little nervous about going. I had heard you can't drink the water or eat fresh fruits/veggies that have been washed in the water. Plus rumor has it the cuisine there is unlike any where else I have been to this point. I packed a bunch of protein bars and some dried fruit to have some snacks to sustain me in case the food made me sick.

From the start of the trip it was clear I would be on my own during the day and most nights as Jeff would be busy with work so he had his coworker hire a college student to serve as my tour guide for a few days. I was glad to have her because the language barrier is definitely a big challenge! I was very naive to how few people would actually speak English. The cab drivers didn't even speak English. I had to carry a card from the hotel with me that had the hotel name and address in Mandarin in case I got lost.

First up was the Summer Palace, a summer resort for the Empress Dowager Cixi in the late 1800s. She was the last ruler of the Qing dynasty. Yeah, don't worry if you are reading this asking yourself who the heck that is! I realized how little I knew about Chinese history when I was visiting all the sights in Beijing. It was hard at times to keep track of all the stories my tour guide was telling me because I didn't have a frame of reference for them. It's like someone telling you all these stories about different US presidents and their families then coinciding it will all these battles and wars.... but you know absolutely nothing about US history. Makes sense, right? :)

Entrance to Summer Palace. . .glad to have my tour guide because
 otherwise I would have no idea what this sign said.

It seems I have a knack for picking landmarks with a lot of stairs!!
We are about to walk all the way up to the top of the palace in this picture.

Still climbing. . .

View from the top. . .it was quite a grey day out!
The lake you see is all part of the palace grounds.

In the picture above you can see gold roofs and brown roofs. The color gold represented the emperor and power so palace buildings always had gold roofs. The surrounding buildings with the brown roofs would have been for the staff.

Cool looking stone boat

Here's a shot back across the lake to see how big the main part of the palace is.

Day 2 included a tour of the Heaven Temple and surrounding gardens. It's a group of religious buildings where the emperors would come to pray for a good harvest during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The roof of the temple is blue because the color is symbolic of the sky and the gods.

This is the Heaven Temple.

The temples are all built of wood and painted bright beautiful designs.

Some of you may have noticed on vacations around the US/world that a lot of Asian people have nice cameras and take pictures of everything! Well my tour guide was no different. She may not have been the one with the camera, but she was constantly asking me to take pictures of every building, door, window, painting, statue, etc. that we walked by. I finally conceded because I felt bad telling her no. So below is one of the many pictures I have posing with the random details of the palace! I know she meant well but I think most of her extra pictures will be deleted shortly. That being said she was so nice, very knowledgeable, and a true example of the Chinese hospitality toward tourists!

Hope you are as fascinated with the door handle as my tour guide!  :)

One of the things that's hard to tell from my pictures is how big the area is surrounding the temple and how nice the gardens are that surround it. The elderly residents get a annual discounted pass to all the gardens in Beijing. As you walk through the gardens in the morning there are dance classes, exercise groups, and people reading all over. With the crowding and noise of the city it is a nice place to get some respite from it all. Below is a picture of a picture looking over the Heaven Temple and surrounding gardens.

Heaven Temple is at the top of the long center walkway.

Here's a picture of a dance/exercise class we saw one morning.

The sign reads "No Naked Flames". . . . I so love how things are translated into English.
Since when have flames ever been clothed I wonder???  :)