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.

Football in China

The Chinese Soccer Team has more enthusiasm than ability. When the locals, who are passionate about the game, wish to compare something as being really bad, they say it is "As bad as the soccer team".

Three Asian teams were desperate to win the World Cup. The coach of the Japanese Team went to a temple and asked the Buddha, "How long will it be before Japan wins the World Cup?" The Buddha thought for a while and then replied; "It will be 50 years." The coach wept and then departed.

The Korean coach also visited a temple and asked Buddha, "How long before Korea wins the World Cup?" After some careful consideration, Buddha replied; "It will be 100 years." The Korean coach wept and then left the temple.

Then the Chinese coach visited the temple and asked the same question; "How long before China wins the World Cup?" Buddha thought long and hard, and then burst into tears.

Great Wall and Ming Tombs. Monday 3rd Sept

Traffic in Beijing seems to mix it with pedestrians with a surprising lack of blood on the streets. The local drivers seem to believe that pedestrian crossings are for decoration and traffic signals are a suggestion.

Nonetheless, everything seems to work and the key to this is the fact that if there is a collision between a car and a pedestrian, the driver has to pay regardless of whom is at fault.

Today, Monday 3rd, we travelled 120km to The Great Wall and clambered all over it like a bunch of tourists. The experience, including a 1000M high cable car ride up to the wall on a relatively clear day was unforgettable and we wished you were all here..

The Great Wall was commenced by the Qin (pronounced Chin) Dynasty and topped up by those who followed during the next 400 years or so. The wall we see today is the handy work of the Ming Emperors (or their slaves) being piled up on the remains of the original. Millions of people must have laboured away on that wall over hundreds of years and indeed, when anyone died on the job, their body became part of the wall.

After lunch we visited the Ming Tombs before returning to the hotel to collapse with exhaustion... excited and happy! During the day we also managed to squeeze in a visit to a jade factory and another to a cloisonne factory and our luggage is already bulging. Cloisonne is produced by making the item, be it a vase or other container or decoration, out of copper. This is hand-decorated and fired in an oven several times before the exposed copper outline of the decoration is electroplated with gold.

The girls are missing their husbands already, but are making up for it with shopping therapy.

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!

China Here We ARE!

Saturday 1st September
What a long day it was... 22 hours, pillow to pillow. Anyhow we finally made it to Beijing where we were met by our fearless CITS guide, "Frank" (not his real name). He showed us to our private bus and entertained us all the way to the Novotel Peace Hotel. It seems every tour guide in China knows that the Great Wall was built to "keep the rabbits out"!

One little surprise we hadn't counted on, was that our duty free liquor was confiscated at the transfer to the domestic flight in Guangzho because liquor isn't allowed as carry-on in China. So if you come here, make sure that you transfer any duty free to your check-in luggage before transferring to domestic flights.