Sightseeing around Beijing. Tuesday 4th Sept.

Tuesday 4th September

We started the day with a tour of Tienanmen Square, seeing it for the first time in daylight. Tienanmen is the largest square in the world and is said to hold 1 million people. It is the seat of power in China where the Great Hall of the People is the Chinese equivalent of our Federal Parliament. The main hall seats 10,000 and the banquet hall will take 5,000 diners at one time.

After a photo shoot of our group in front of Tienanmen Gate, and Mao's picture, we moved on to the Forbidden City. This was the palace of all of the Emperors who ruled China fro the 1400's until 1908.

After lunch in a classy restaurant, which was included in the package, (lunch most days are), we moved on to a silk factory and watched silk being wound from the cocoons onto spindles, as well as doonas being made from silk cocoons. A silk dooner is said to keep you warm in winter and cool in summer. Quite a few of the party bought silk doonas as we moved into the retail area to purchase bedding and clothing in a shopping frenzy.

After the silk factory we drove to the Summer Palace which is really a gigantic lake within a very large garden. This is where the Emperors spent the 4 hottest months of the year. The lake is partly man-made and partly natural. In winter it freezes over and people skate on it and in Summer, it is a popular boating place.

We boarded a launch in the shape of a dragon and glided across the lake to the other side where we alighted below a temple, taking pride of place high on a hilltop, overlooking the lake below.

We finished the day with some colourful theatre watching the Shaolin Monks performing a story incorporating some impressive feats of Kung Fu.

Lazy Sunday

Sunday 2nd September
After a lazy brekky we wandered off, some to the markets and others to explore the city, this wonderful city of Beijing. Some great bargains were won at the weekend markets creating many happy smiles. David wins the prize as the toughest hard bargainer.

At 1pm we met at the hotel where Frank took us on a tour of the Houtongs, the traditional backstreets of Beijing which are now World Heritage listed. We travelled by pedal-powered rickshaw and ate at a traditional noodle house where a hearty dish of noodles and beef cost just AU$2 and a large bottle of beer cost 50 cents.

That was by no means the end of the day! In the evening, we grabbed a fleet of taxis and headed back to the Houtongs to find a traditional Beijing Duck Restaurant for a feast of a lifetime. Now this method of cooking duck, know around the world as Peking Duck, is as old as time itself, but nowhere else can you find a place that does it as well as here at the origin of the dish.

The taxi ride cost us about AU$2 per cab for a ride of about 15 minutes. WE found the restaurant tucked away in a little backstreet and as we entered the front door, we were greeted by the sight of an open fire with several ducks hanging beside it after having being cooked. A process that takes about 17 hours, I am told.

What a feast! The chef slices up the duck and it is served with a plate of small pancakes and a side dish of soy sauce and shallots. There were dishes of veges and meat aplenty and the beer and wine flowed all evening. In the end it cost about AU$20 per head including drinks.

Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel via Tienanmen Square, a spectacle like no other, lit up in the night. There were kite flyers and street vendors. People en-mass wandered around enjoying the cool night air and the carnival atmosphere.

What a night!