Home Safe

So we have been unable to access the blog from phone or hotel business center since our arrival in Beijing. We are now home and I hope to document our days in Beijing in due course, not to mention further editing of previous posts and adding a few photo's.

Beijing:

We arrived in Beijing more or less on time.  The airport was huge, and felt very new (clean and tidy). Got all of our luggage without difficulty, and no problems with customs/immigration agents with our visas all in order.  Pick up was good and we met our guide, Sunny at the exit.  Then on to the van at curbside.  We did have a little trouble stuffing all of our luggage into the back of the van, but eventually got it done.  The drive to our hotel was interesting in that they are very wide freeways (left hand drive, right side of road).  Even in town, the main roads are very broad.  Driving habits are interesting, with lights and lane demarcation more of a guideline than any kind of actual rule or even courtesy.  So the driver dropped us at the Novotel and left us with Sunny for check in.  There seemed to be some kind of delay, but Sunny wasn't forthcoming so I said I wanted to check out a local grocery for bottled water.  Walked around the corner and found some.  Back at the lobby and still no rooms.  Finally, Sunny figured out that we were at the wrong Novotel.  This was a clue.  Had to call the driver to come back and take us to the correct Novotel Peace Hotel, much nearer the main tourist attractions, and appeared from the lobby to be a bit nicer.  Once we arrived there, all else went smoothly as they actually had our reservations.  So Sunny left us there after making a couple of suggestions for getting something to eat.  We decided to go to the "Restaurant on the 7th floor" of the nearby shopping mall, which was great and so after that, off to bed.

Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace:

We started right at 8:00 am and were off to Tian'anmen Square, which is a really huge area across the Boulevard from the Forbidden City.  Seemed like we drove around a lot to get there, but wasn't far by foot from our hotel.  Had to pass through security to enter and strolled around for quite a while just getting a feeling for the size of the place.  I can't remember what Sunny told me the square could accommodate, but it was a lot of people (Myles recalls he said one million people can stand within the square).  We wandered around for a while before taking the underpass over to the Forbidden City.  Forbidden City is massive in its own right. 

The main building was where the Emperor held court and met with visitors.  Learned how to differentiate between the male and female lion sculptures that flank all main entries (males have a paw on a sphere while females have a paw on a lion cub).  We walked around to some of the other court houses and living chambers where we saw where the last Emperor slept etc.  Out the back and linked back up with our driver to head over to the Temple of Heaven.  Once more, ancient architecture was quite overwhelming - think about what it must have entailed to conceive of these structures and then build them hundreds of years ago.  The intricacies of the art and design - incomprehensible.  It was time for tea, so we went to a tea house and learned all about the tea rituals of the Chinese.  Sunny had already advised me that if I would only adopt a proper tea consumption habit, all that ails me would cease.  Further, chinese people don't have illness due to their tea drinking (right....). After that, it was off to the Summer Palace.  There is a small lake there with and island.  The bridge to the island is called the Marco Polo bridge as he wrote about it when he was exploring there.  The original bridge still stands with 17 arches and 544 uniquely carved lion sculptures gracing the rails.  In between all of this, we stopped for lunch at a place that was obviously catering to busloads of tourists.  Kind of a weak effort to westernize their buffet.  After the summer palace, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and then walked down the street to a restaurant where we really enjoyed what seemed to be an authentic Beijing menu.  Have to say we should be proud of our own China Town in Calgary vis-a-vis restaurants.

Hutong tour, Peking Duck, Kung Fu Show:

Ming Tomb and Great Wall:

Ming Tomb was interesting, but the highlight was the Great Wall.  We stopped for lunch and walked up a very long and steep drive to a hotel in the hills.  Had a great view of the mountains and wall with clouds and overcast interrupting.  Great lunch at a fairly vacant and quiet hotel.  After lunch, we went to the base area and entry point.  Rode a tram up to the wall and spent a couple of hours walking along.  This is truly a spectacular human undertaking. 

Don't have words to describe it, really has to be seen to be believed.  The wall traverses 13,170 miles (21,895 km).  Hard to comprehend.

So predictably, it has proved impossible to finish the blog entries for Beijing.  That said, I do want to record the following:

45 days, 42 buffet breakfasts, 8 countries, 50000 km, 7 air carriers, 2 islands, 7 currencies, 14 boat rides, 22 game drives, 15 hotels/lodges, 2 rental cars, 1 confiscated bottle of whisky.  We used Euros in Portugal, Lira in Turkey, Shillings in Kenya, Rupees in Seychelles, Baht in Bangkok and Phuket, Rand in South Africa and Yaun in Beijing.

Great trip, glad to be home.