So the looooooong awaited post about my
Spring Festival fun is here. I think considering the length of my trip and
amount of photos, I’ll be splitting it into a few posts. Enjoy!
Firstly, I want to kick off the post with
some New Year inspired nail art! Now those who know me know I thoroughly enjoy
painting my nails, so with the arrival of my nail art pens in the post from my
lovely parents I decided to do something to celebrate the holiday!
 |
| Year of the Snake! |
Anyway… I left a sunny Fúzhōu on 4th
September around midday with an overwhelming sense of both excitement and anxiety.
Excitement for obvious reasons (holiday, no work, travelling, finally leaving Fúzhōu
etc.) but anxious because in Běijīng I was meant to meet my brother and I’m a
natural worrier so assumed something would go wrong.. As I feared, our rendezvous
didn’t go smoothly what with my flight being significantly delayed and a lack
of communication between us. But! Eventually in one of my frantic sweeps of the
surrounding area I spied a laowai I knew! We weren’t particularly exciting our
first night I’m afraid, just arrived at our hostel and went to bed.
Day 1: Like most people coming to China, you
have the classic checklist of the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the
Terracotta Warriors. We weren’t any different, so began our trip with a visit
to the Forbidden City/Palace! Approaching it, I really felt a sense of awe.
Inside however, no offence intended, but I was quite underwhelmed. Don’t get me
wrong, its size is incredibly impressive, but the buildings themselves are
pretty repetitive and having been in China a while and seen my fair share of
temples, it didn’t really stand out. Maybe it was more the freezing temperatures
making the walk around less than pleasant, not sure, but my verdict is: not necessarily
a must-see (unless you’re interested in the history of course). Had some nifty
gift shops though – where we snuck in whenever we could to escape the cold. Post-Forbidden
City we wandered Běijīng in a daze, very impressed by the bright lights of
shopping centres before heading back to the hostel.
 |
| A few snaps from the Forbidden City |
Day 2: Another thing on our list was the
Summer Palace. A way out of the city, but still on the metro line, the Summer
Palace is fo sho a must-see my friends. Consisting of VERY extensive grounds
(2.9 square km, the majority of this being Kūnmíng Lake – according to wiki) dotted
with loads of outdoor gazebo-esq. structures; and even in the depths of winter
it was stunningly beautiful! Windy as hell but amazing to see! Those emperors
sure knew how to spend their summers. The lake was entirely frozen over when we
visited and many a tourist took to walking out on it. Within the Summer Palace,
was a cute little shopping area, Sūzhōu Street. Mainly for tourists I think, it
was totally dead when we were there, on account of it being so cold I imagine.
After resting at Starbucks a spell (there were MANY Starbucks visits during my
holiday) we headed to the Silk Market! Now I don’t love haggling as much as
some people I know, but it was surely a place worth visiting! It’s a feast for
your eyes with numerous floors selling everything you could imagine from
knock-off clothing and electronics to novelty lighters and mini Terracotta
Warriors. Easily the most entertaining part is observing other tourists trying
to haggle down with the stall-holders. They are just so darn persistent! It
scared me.
 |
| Summer Palace shots |
 |
| Sūzhōu Street |
Day 3 (aka BEST DAY EVER): We had decided
pre-arrival that the Great Wall needed a whole day devoted to it, and we
couldn’t have chosen a better day. Before my trip I hadn’t actually realised
that there are quite a few areas to the Great Wall, not all connected what with
time and various other factors acting on it. Of course everyone wants to avoid
the really touristy areas like Bādálĭng,
so we were aiming for Jīnshānlĭng – the most
northern part of the wall. Getting up a little later than anticipated, we
followed my Lonely Planet guide book (bloody brilliant, like my Bible,
recommend to everyone etc.) when it said to take a bus to a small town outside
of Běijīng, Mìyún, and hire a car and driver
to take us to the wall entrance. I was slightly sceptical about getting there,
but I should have known Lonely Planet wouldn’t have given me bad advice, and we
made it fine. Like I said, we couldn’t have chosen a better day: the sun was
shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and best of all, there wasn’t another
living soul on the wall. No one! Not one person! I didn’t think that was
possible. But it was very nippy noodles out there. Anyway, (in hindsight) I
really enjoyed the walk along Jīnshānlĭng;
this bit of the wall isn’t that easy to climb and with the snow/ice we had to
be particularly careful (on one occasion we had to slide down a section of
steps on our butts as it was safer than walking), but that made it all the more
exciting! In hindsight. On the view: breath-taking, just so incredible. But
have a gander at the photos below as they’re much better than any description I
can give. The Great Wall has easily been my favourite sight in China thus far.
 |
| Great Wall! |
Day 4: One of the things in Běijīng that I
thought sounded interesting, and had been recommended to me by a friend, was
the 798 Art District. Unfortunately being so close to Chinese New Year, it was
closed down and practically deserted apart from a few fellow tourists who also
didn’t think about the holiday. Ah well. In the evening, we decided to watch
some crazy Chinese Kung Fu show and we were not disappointed with the stunts
those guys were busting out! It was the story of a young boy who reluctantly
joins this monastery or something to study the art of Kung Fu; he overcomes
various obstacles, fights in a war or something then becomes the head of the
monastery. I think that was it. I was a
little too distracted by the topless men jumping around doing flips, bending
wooden poles with their torsos and snapping metal board things with their heads
to pay real attention to the story.
Day 5: Now that all our Běijīng must-dos were out of the way, we spent our next few days in Běijīng wandering. Today, we went to the Lama Temple and the Confucius Temple (located conveniently closely to each other). Erm, not too much to say really. Both temples, both pretty architecture (standard). It was interesting seeing people actually burning their incense and praying for the New Year though. Post temple hopping, we tried some of China’s weirder street food. I gave crickets a go, and my brother went for baby scorpions. I think the scorpions tasted kinda like chicken personally – still very weird though. The crickets tasted well, just fried, sort of like cheap ready salted crisps. The taste wasn’t the bad thing, it was more the texture and knowing what you were eating that made it a not particularly enjoyable experience. Wasn’t a party in my mouth, that’s for sure. Earlier in our trip we had actually stumbled upon a street lined with stalls selling EVERYTHING on skewers. This included centipedes, larger scorpions, starfish and – my fave – tarantulas. We never made our way back though, maybe next time.
 |
| Lama Temple |
 |
| Confucius Temple |
 |
| Yum yum for my tum |
Day 6: Another pottering around day which
was nice. We ended up heading to Běihăi Park. Seemed pretty to stroll around in
and like the Summer Palace had a large body of water occupying most of the
area. We didn’t stay all that long though as we were cold and uncomfortable.
There was a good vantage point in the White Dagoba that was located on Jade
Islet though which allowed a good view of the Forbidden City. After Běihăi Park,
we headed to the Temple of Earth Park for a New Year’s market. Good Lord it was
SO crowded! You could barely move! So again we didn’t stay long.
 |
| Běihăi Park |
 |
| The Temple of Earth Park |
And that ends the Běijīng part of my trip!
As much as I really enjoyed the individual attractions, Běijīng as a city didn’t
really wow me. Everything seems too spread out I thought – though they have a
super Metro to take you anywhere at only 2 kuài per journey! Such a good trip
though – ate some great food, saw some amazing things (the Great Wall was just
SO amazing) and had general bare bantz.
Xī’ān coming up folks!
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment