Posts Tagged 'beijing'

Beijing – Day 3

Published July 12, 2007 China Leave a Comment
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Day 3 in Beijing took us to two contrasting locations: The Summer Palace and the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park.

Whereas the Summer Palace was already totally crowded in the early morning (9.30am), the Ethnic Culture Park was almost empty. Unfortunately the Ethnic Culture Park, although it is already opened, is not yet finished. Therefore many houses and attractions are still under construction or still closed. Nevertheless it looks already promising. The park shall be finished until the beginning of the olympic games in Beijing in summer 2008. Disappointing was the entrance fee as the park is still under construction: 90 RMB (~9 Euro) for adults and 65 RMB (~6,50 Euro) for students and seniors (Well, as we looked at students, we only had to pay for students ;-) )

2007-07-11 – Beijing Day 3

Beijing – Day 2

Published July 12, 2007 China Leave a Comment
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On the second day of our Beijing trip, we climbed the Great Wall. We booked the tour at our hostel and were picked up at 8am. After 3.5 hours we arrived at the Great Wall in the north east of Beijing. We decided not to take the cable car, but to do the full hike of 10km.

When we got up the hills to the Wall, we were kindly welcomed by some mongolian farmers who wanted to sell picture books, post cards, t-shirts… they not only told us that we just climbed the 1st tower of 32 towers but were following us like shadows wanting to be our guide, t-shirt seller and so on. However, when we reached the 10th tower we started to like these farmers for carrying ice water up and down all the stairs of the Great Wall. After bargaining over the water and finally buying it for 50 cents, we enjoyed the amazing views and rested from the extausting hike.

But we had 22 towers, thousands of stairs up and down and tons of annoying mongolian farmers ahead of us ;-) However the absolutely great views made up for it as seen on the pictures. And after 3.5 hours, instead of 4.5 as our guides told us, and sweating like crazy, we arrived exhausted and ready to eat something at Simatai village. Being as strong and cool as we are ;-) and taking the ropeway and boat in the end, we reached the village as the first of our group (about 20 people). :-)

2007-07-10 – Beijing Day 2

Beijing – Day 1

Published July 10, 2007 China Leave a Comment
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On our first day in Beijing, we visited the Forbidden City, Tian’an Men. This was the palace of the emperor during the last millenniums. The size of the whole area was amazing, although most of the buildings looked almost the same from the outside and often did not differ from the inside as well.

In the afternoon we went further south of Beijing to the Temple of Heaven. The temple was built in 1420 and its original purpose was to praise heaven and earth. But after another temple, called Temple of Earth, was built in the north of Beijing, the Temple of Heaven was considered to only praise the heaven from then on. Well…

2007-07-09 – Beijing Day 1

This video show small skewered scorpions, which you can buy at some of the restaurants. The scorpions are still living and seemed to panic a little bit. Perhaps they already knew what will happen to them? ;-)

Arrival in Beijing

Published July 10, 2007 China Leave a Comment
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Sunday afternoon, Judith and I hit the road to Beijing. The plan was:

  • 2pm: start at my apartment
  • 2:45pm: arrive at the airport
  • 3.30pm: boarding
  • 4pm: take off
  • 5:50pm: arrival in Beijing
  • 6:20pm: get a taxi (got the address in Pinying & chinese characters)
  • 7pm: check-in at hostel
  • 8pm: get dinner and have a first look around

    • => overall travel time: 5-6 hours

    We ended up with this:

  • 2.30pm: start at my apartment (we were just not ready with packing :-) )
  • 3:15pm: arrive at the airport; step out of the taxi; hear our names called out for last check-in; speed up a little bit
  • 4pm: boarding still not started
  • 4:20pm: boarding starts
  • 4:35pm: departure is delayed because of unknown delay (oh, thank you for that information! ;-) )
  • 5pm: take off (yippieh!)
  • 6:40pm: information from the captain, that there is a thunder storm above Beijing airport, so that we will have to wait
  • 6:55pm: information from the captain, that the thunder storm is still having fun above Beijing airport and that we will stop at some other airport which name we did not understand
  • 7:20pm: landing; unfortunately at the wrong airport…
  • 7:50pm: information from the board crew: they got some cups of noodles; all people who want some should come to “the kitchen”
  • 8:20pm: after overcoming problems in the supply chain: Yeah…noodles!! :-)
  • 9:30pm: information from the captain: thunder storm is over in Beijing, but unfortunately there are too many aircrafts now trying to reach Beijing, so that we have to wait.
  • 9:45pm: information from the captain: 14 airplanes are waiting in line to fly to Beijing from our airport. We are number 7.
  • 10:30pm: we finally take off to Beijing
  • 11:01pm: landing in Beijing
  • 11:06pm: information from the crew: currently no parking spot for our plane available
  • 11:15pm: airplane got finally parked; but no buses available to bring us from the maneuvering area to the airport building
  • 11:25pm: wait for our luggage
  • 11:35pm: wait in line for a taxi
  • 11:50pm: show the address of our hostel in Pinying and Chinese characters to the taxi driver => he does not have a clue :(
  • 11:51pm: call our hostel warden to let her explain the way to our hostel to the taxi driver in Chinese
  • 0:20am: we finally arrive at our hostel!
  • 0:40am: successfully checked in
  • 0:50am: get another cup of noodles and some chips
  • 1:10am: go to bed

    • => overall travel time: 10 hours :-(

    Yesterday (Monday), we visited the forbidden city and the temple of heaven. I will upload pictures tonight as we will now (7:30am) go on a trip to the great wall.


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