China Part 2 - Beijing
Funnily enough when we were in Beijing one of the guys Doug used to work with was there on business. So we arrived Sunday morning and met Tom at the Forbidden City for the afternoon. He also took us to the markets to do some shopping and treated us to the best meals we had all trip.
The Summer Palace was one of my favourites of the trip. It is an enormous expanse of lake, gardens and ornate palace buildings. Makes you wonder what it would be like to be really, really rich!
2 of the temples we saw while in Beijing were the Lama Temple and the White Cloud Temple. The White cloud temple was much more daily life and saw many worshippers leaving their incense wrappers all over. While although there were worshippers at the Lama Temple, it was cleaner and more elaborate, more touristy. Seeing the two was a good contrast.
The Temple of Heaven was quite amazing with local playing cards, musical instruments and games. We even joined in for a couple of games; one that was sort of like hacky sack and one that was played with a racket and ball. The sights in the Temple of Heaven Park were great and some were interesting like the echo wall and a Round Alter which when you stood in the centre is like the echo circle at UBC.
And of course the Great Wall. We decided to go to Simatai, one of the furthest parts away with a 4 hour bus ride to get there. It was steep terrain and the views were amazing, well would have been really amazing if it wasn't so hazy (ie smoggy) The wall was amazing to see, although very cold!
All in all a good trip. I would like to go back again with more time to spend, maybe a month or two? There are just so many things to see...
posted by Doug and Sarah @ 11:28 PM
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