I’ve been to Hong Kong, but I’ve never actually been to China. So instead of taking a side trip to Japan like normal I pushed for the family to take a trip to Beijing. So in summary of what I thought of Beijing, China: Great history, rude people, cheap labor, clean streets but dirty air.
My mom had a friend who had a friend who run some tour company or something. Anyways, we ended up getting our own English speaking tour guide and a super aggressive driver.
Day 1: Saw the local Beijing Olympic stuff, like the Bird’s Nest and the Bubbly Aquatic place where Michael Phelps did his thing. I was surprised that China had Dairy Queens. The Starbucks and McDonalds you expect just not DQ. We also had Peking Duck. Since it’s the city’s specialty I expected it to be good. I did get a surprise but good, I dunno. The skin is suppose to be what makes Peking Duck special. It was very different, you’d put the skin in your mouth and BAM it would just melt. It was nice but I like the crunchy skin and the ability to actually eat it. We stayed at a nice hotel with plugs that fit my electronics and a shower with one of those rain from the roof showers.
Day 2: We walked the most the second day. We saw Tiananmen square which was just a big square that leads into the Forbidden City. The thing that is so different about China from Taiwan is the amount of land available. The palace was freaking huge.
so big
We ended day 2 by eating some old school hot pot. Apparently the lamb hot pot was something special. I still preferred the all you can eat personal hot pot we had in Taiwan.
Day3: We had to go about 40 mins out of Beijing to get to a part of the Great Wall of China.
The thing about the Great Wall is that its a whole bunch of walls and pieces built at different times. So, we went to this ‘part’ of the wall. It was in the mountains so the wall itself wasn’t that high. It simply used the mountain as part of the defense. All I could think about was Mulan when the people were attacking and the guys would light the fires at the posts… “Now all of China knows you’re here”. I easily answered the tour guide’s question about why they had to have the towers at set intervals. Climbing up the wall was actually really challenging. The steps are all different sizes, the mountain part was steep, and I’m afraid of heights. My brother the mountain climber got up quick, it took me longer since I had to grab the side rails all the way up and down. My dad went up with a 20 step strategy for stamina sake and my mom enjoyed the view from below. It was cool to see, but it was a wall. I knew the history so it wasn’t super amazing to actually see it in person. It was good to see it finally though.
Funny story about the people while at the wall. First, my mom was getting a picture with the wall and my brother squatted down to take it. Some local decides to walk right in between them and just stand. Second, while we sat and waited for my dad to come down the wall we saw two ladies waiting for their friends. When a third person arrived, they both got up and one dropped a water bottle. All three of them looked down at the bottle, and decided it wasn’t worth picking up and just left. Who does that! Luckily since labor is so cheap in China, they have a lot of trash people and the bottle was removed soon enough.
Rest of the time:
We saw the Temple of Heaven, went to a bunch of touristy spots where they try to sell you stuff, and had a dinner that cost less than the ice cream we bought after. Ask me about stories, China is an interesting place. I’m glad I visited but I’ll never go back.
The last days in Taiwan were fun, I got to see Grace, Richard, Jimmy.
