Teaching in China provides an awesome opportunity to explore thanks to some excellently timed long holiday breaks. Our first came at the end of September when we were given a week off to celebrate Chinese National Day. The first trip we wanted to take was to see the magnificent ancient city of Beijing and all of the world famous tourist sites.
We were very fortunate because we got beautiful, clear weather with very low pollution while we were there and we couldn't have asked for a better trip to see the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Hutongs, and of course the Great Wall!
One of our good friends and fellow Kuwait Harp, Eve, moved to Beijing last year to teach, so we had a perfect tour guide for our trip. She recommended an ideal hotel and spent a lot of time showing us her amazing city. We also took a day trip to the LongQing Gorge, which we had never heard of, and it was an awe-inspiring site despite that day being the only rainy one we had on our trip. The Forbidden City was great and the Summer Palace was beautiful, not to mention the other famous sites were all everything we hoped they would be. Beijing is awesome! Our faith in China was restored (somewhat) after this great trip!
The day we went to the Great Wall we were taken by a guide to "the real McCoy", as he said. He drove us a couple of hours outside of the city to a section of the wall that was not filled with tourists and we had an ideal trek along the wall. We saw maybe a dozen other hikers on the wall and had all the time we wanted to snap pictures and soak up the views. It truly is a spectacular site and the experience is one of the highlights of our travel lives!
Now for pictures.
Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City
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| Standing in Tienanmen Square looking towards the Forbidden City. |
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| Mao is everywhere |
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After entering the Forbidden City.
There are many covered walkways for the emperors that are all beautifully decorated. |
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| The bridge is crooked so that bad qi (chi) cannot follow you as you cross. |
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| The colors and detail in the buildings are incredible! |
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| Still inside the Forbidden City. We were amazed at how HUGE this place was! |
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| If you can't find a parking spot with this, something is wrong with you! |
The Temple of Heaven
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This area was a great spot of people-watching!
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The Great Wall
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| This is where we started our trek! |
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| Taking in the views AND resting from such a steep climb!! |
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| You just have to see it to believe it. Even then, it is hard to take it all in! |
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| We could have stayed for so much longer |
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| You can see the Wall continue behind Lindsay covered by the trees. |
The Summer Palace
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| Even on a gloomy day this place is beautiful |
LongQing Gorge
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| A temple in LongQing Gorge |
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| With the frigid temperatures we were actually okay to hike up nearly 1,000 steps to the top! |
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| It was quite a steep hike to get up to this point in the gorge, but SO worth it!! |
Wandering Around the City and Eating Gross Things
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| Fried squid, which Even warned us looked like a fried rat - it was actually really delicious!! |
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| Whole frogs |
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| Snakes |
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| Beetles, spiders, and snakes |
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| Centipedes, more spiders, and silk worms |
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| Some kind of gross bug, huge scorpions, and small worms |
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Sheep testicles
(the vendor was desperate for Joe to try one!) |
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Small scorpion
He was so anxious to eat it that he threw it into his mouth before we could take pictures!
We made him take it out and pose! |
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| "Small" scorpions |
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| Fortunately, we haven't found any street markets like this one in Shenzhen |
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| When in Beijing you must have Peking Duck! It was fantastic!!! |
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