First stop on my China trip was Beijing. After a night flight, we are coming in to land when the Captain says "we have clear visibility today which is great for Beijing", so thankfully no smog in sight which was a good start! You can see why Beijing suffers from smog as the city itself sits in a 'basin' surrounded by mountains to the north and many factories are located on the outskirts. I learnt during my trip that there are now strict restrictions on car use and only certain cars are allowed to enter the city on certain days depending on the number plate. I guess it's their version of congestion charging and I saw plenty of police pulling over drivers to fine them!
I checked in to the hotel and decided to venture out to get through the jet-lag barrier. I saw on the map that the Temple of Heaven park was close by so I went there to take a look around and entered through the 'west gate'. This place is huge, bigger than the Forbidden City! It was originally built for emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) as a place of ceremony and worship. The whole complex is encased by a large stone wall. The northern part within the wall is semicircular symbolising the heavens and the southern part is square symbolising the earth. The northern part is higher elevated than the southern part as the design shows that heaven is high and the earth is low, reflecting the ancient Chinese belief that heaven is round and the earth is square. The temples here were stunning and the parkland is so large and green is was really peaceful just to was around. My favourite temple was the one pictured above, the Temple of Prayer for Good Harvests which I loved against the clear blue background.
The next day I got up for a guided tour of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiananmen square is pretty big and a lot more peaceful than the images I remember seeing on TV in the 80's with tanks and mass protests from the uprising there. You have Chairman Moa's mausoleum, a large flower statue, a monument representing the People's Heroes, the National Museum of China and the large gate entrance to the Forbidden City. There was a presence of military but mainly for ceremonial purposes and I saw them marching up and down a few times.
Next stop was the Forbidden City, the walled city for the Chinese Emperors which boasts temples, courtyards, reception halls and a summer palace or 'gardens'. Again, this place is huge and takes a good few hours to walk around. The Summer Palace garden area is lovely and where the emperor's would go to escape the summer heat. It's full of little temples, pagoda's, ponds and manicured gardens. A lot of the buildings in the Forbidden City have 2 Chinese 'lions' outside them which is actually typical across the country. The one on the right is male and has a clothed ball under it's paw. The left one is female and sometimes has a cub. The male represents power and has it's mouth open to warn away evil. The female has her mouth closed to represent keeping the good luck within the building.
After the Forbidden City, I took a rickshaw ride around the old Hutong area of Beijing which is around a lake and full of little alleyways. In Beijing, hutongs are alleys formed by lines of siheyuan, traditional courtyard residences. Many neighbourhoods were formed by joining one siheyuan to another to form a hutong, and then joining one hutong to another. We were invited in to a ladies home to have a look around which was cool.
I then went to a traditional Chinese tea tasting. Reminded me of my old coffee tasting days at Starbucks where I used to work! We all sat around a table while the lady explained the history behind the ceremony and the different teas. She taught us how to drink properly and how the cup; men hold the cup with less fingers to symbolise power and the ladies hold it differently to show elegance. Clearly I was neither as it was too fiddly for me, like chopsticks! We were also shown how to 'roll the cup' on our face for skincare whilst we drank jasmine, green tea, ginseng etc all with different medicinal properties. At least it was nicer than 'Fire Water' which is about 56% proof! It's supposed to help you sleep but it's really strong and burns your mouth!
I ended the evening at a Chinese acrobatics show. WOW! How they did some of this stuff was amazing! The 2 highlights for me, one lady was spinning umbrellas.....on her feet upside down! And then there was an iron ball where a guy on a motorbike was zooming around in it. That was impressive enough, but then he was joined by one more, then another, then 8 in total! One small error and those guys would have got hurt!
Afterwards, I headed to an ATM to withdraw some cash and then back to the hotel to sleep. It's worth saying that you must withdraw money from a bank or reputable looking ATM as there is apparently more fake money in circulation in China than real money! Most shops check your notes, especially the higher ones so never get any change from a street seller or market as it may be fake. I headed off to bed, all the mattresses are hard in China as they believe they help your back, so you may struggle if you are used to a soft mattress!
My Beijing vlog is here
Next stop, the Great Wall!
