15. The Poly Art Museum - some of the rarest Chinese art from early dynasties.......and really BORING (no pictures taken, hard enough to stay awake!)
14. The English speaking GPS automatic tour guides. These were awesome and were available at most of the major attractions (#4,3,2,7 and 10). A red light would flash telling you where you were, and an English speaking guide would give you the story plus occasionally add in some colorful stories and interesting facts.
13. Really cool buildings - specifically The National Grand Theatre (I did not go inside, I was afraid that it was an egg containing space aliens....plus it is located right near the forbidden palace and REALLY seems out of place in "historic Beijing") and the CCTV Building. The Chinese call that one big underpants...but it really is something to see. I wanted take pictures of these for my daughter, Jordyn, who wants to be an architect......tough to find buildings any more unique than these ones?
12. Gate of Heavenly Peace - Complete with a huge portrait of Mao, and in between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City....so really could be classified as kind of part of the "Forbidden City".
11. Zongshan Park and Jingsdan Park . All the parks in Beijing cost (between 5 and 20RMB) which is kind of annoying, but in fairness they are truly beautiful, exceptionally well kept and with lots of interesting things to see while walking around.
10. The Beijing Zoo - It has Panda's...how can it not be in the top 10? (plus the cost to go to this zoo is only 20RMB or $2.85cdn).
9. The Watch Tower and Drum Tower - these are next to each other and offer spectacular views of Beijing....I missed the Drum Show by 10 minutes (last one is at 4:30pm) but bonus points for being in a cool area with lots of shops, food stands, and the oldest street in Beijing one block away.
8. The Silk Market and Yashow Market - shop till you drop, and bargain even harder. I could not get as good deals as Miranda...but that might have been because I was a VERY sweaty 6'1" 200+lb man trying to buy lady's purses and wallets with my "deer in the headlights look" who acted like he wanted to be ANYWHERE but at these stupid markets. However, I did manage to buy seven purses ($14cdn each), countless ladies wallets ($2.50cdn each), numerous watches ($3-$14cdn each), and cheap tacky souvenirs ($2-$10cdn). I also confirmed that I am not a very good bargainer because I spent all my money at these places (in just over 4 hours - probably some kind of record).......NB: I even spent my "Beijing cab fair" and had to take the subway to the train station!
7. Beihai Park - I separated this from the other parks mentioned in item #11....it is by far the prettiest of all the parks I visited and had lots to see and do.
6. Tiananmen Square - The world's largest public square (440,000 sq meters). Technically there is not much to "see", but cool knowing the history....plus big time bonus points given as I made sure I was there for the flag lowering ceremony at the end of the day....which was really something. the funny thing is that I was about 20 rows "back", but in this case my 6'1" frame helped me as I could look over the first 20 rows of shorter Chinese people!
5. Hutongs - being able to explore siheyuan (courtyard houses) and ancient alleyways full of shops, places to eat and just plain cool sites. There is hundreds of them all over Beijing and they are AWESOME!!!!!!
4. The Summer Palace - this is where the Emperor and Empresses went in summer to escape the Beijing heat. It was stunningly pretty, very historical and filled with all sorts of interesting temples, buildings and even had a stone boat!
3. Lama Temple - listed as the most magnificent and largest Tibetan Buddhist temples outside of Tibet. Almost a calming religious feeling with Monk's chanting, people bowing 3 times to Buddha statues and incense burning. It made me want to learn all about Buddhism and was technically tied with #2 (The Forbidden City) as my favourite attraction.
2. Forbidden City - this walled city within Beijing is protected by a moat and was where Chinese Emperor's spent their time. For over 500 years it was off limits to commoners and only enuchs, concubines and servants of the court were allowed within the gates. There were tons of treasures to see and lots of history and "soap opera type stories"....for example during the Ming Dynasty, there were an estimated 9000 maids of the court (concubines) and 70,000 enuchs. Enuchs sat in a chair and got their "gear" chopped off by a sharp knife - and over 1/2 the lucky fellows who wanted to be enuch's died!
1. The "end of the day" Cold Beer (of course) and the shower before bed (in a totally north american style bathroom)! All four days I walked miles and miles (when I wasn't riding buses and subways for miles and miles!) I was out the door every morning at 7:30 and not back into my hotel room until 8 or 9 at night....but there was a little supermarket on the corner that sold cold beer and I'd grab one on the way up to my room. Nothing ever tasted so good! Beijing was hot (30+ degrees every day) and as mentioned above I sweated a lot!....therefore the cold shower before falling into bed was a close second (or maybe even tied) with the end of day beer as one of the best parts of my day!!!!
All in all, it was a great weekend - I loved it....my favourite part was the city's incredible history. I have a picture of a restaurant sign saying that the restaurant was Est. in 1669.....and Beijinger's refer to it as the "new one on the corner"
Sorry to include so many pictures, but I took 268 of them over the 4 days and this is just a "few of them". I am unable to access to the Blog web site (there are quite a few sites that people in China can not "access") and it is quite a process for Chad to save pictures and then place them in the blog (so he will just put them below and you will have to guess which items above they relate to)!!!!!!
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