Temple, Temple, Great Wall!

Day 49 - 13/07/2010 - 22:16 - Beijing, China

So we've had another 2 days, 2 great days in Beijing. I really love the place, it's a beautiful, modern city that still holds onto it's traditional roots and it can be seen in the backstreets, such as the one our hotel is on.

We watched the World Cup final on Sunday night, and didn't get up too late on Monday considering - about 10am. We headed out to the Lamas Temple in the morning which was really great - the fact that many Buddhists actually worshipped and burnt incense there made it stand out from other temples we've seen on this trip. It smelt beautiful and gave the place that added atmosphere too.

For lunch, we went back to the chain restaurant we went to yesterday. Laura had the same as me, whereas I had some pork with cabbage and rice, the pork was slow cooked and was very tender. It was still only £1.70 - an absolute bargain.

In the afternoon we headed to the Temple of Heaven which again was spectacular. The complex was over 270 hectares big, and it took all afternoon to walk around. Some parts (the main temples) were very crowded which wasn't great but you could really lose yourself in the park which was just as great as the main sights themselves. We went for quite a long walk around part of the perimeter of the park. The park is also used by local people to exercise and dance and we saw lots of people playing ball games which added to the feel that it wasn't just your usual tourist attraction.

We got back to the hotel at about 6pm, and showered before heading out for tea. We didn't end up leaving for a while because the safe box in our room malfunctioned and they actually had to take it out off the wall (after opening it with the master key) which was a bit annoying, but never mind.

For tea we decided to see what was on offer at the street food night market on Wangfujing Street. We knew that there would be stuff we would never touch with a barge pole, but there wasn't much "normal" savoury food on offer so ended up going to a restaurant. Scorpions, seahorses, spiders (tarantulas+bigger), lizards, locusts. You name it, they will have it (alive) on a skewer waiting for you to pick it, for them to cook it, and you to eat it. Yum yum. Can't say we had too much of an appetite after that but hey ho, we went to a restaurant eventually.

That was a whole different experience in it's own right. The menu, whilst in English was possibly the worst translation in the history of man kind. I know Chinese people don't do English translations very well but my god this was bad! The food was almost in riddles it was so confusing but in the end we managed to order some spicy pork and pineapple chicken (which coincidentally were about the only 2 things translated properly!) The drinks menu was even more of a pain to decipher, we managed to find coke with the help of the waitress and ordered two - they came out and they were 1.25litre bottles of coke! Oops! The meal was nice though so I can't complain.

We booked our tickets to the great wall that evening and went to bed knowing we had to be up early. Before we went to bed our guide telephoned us in our room and said that she would be in the hotel at 7:30pm and there was no need to wait in the lobby she would ring. On the basis of this we got up at 6:45am. 7:05am - telephone rings. She's downstairs - mad rush!

We expected there to be a coach load on this tour, but there were only 5 people in the end excluding guide and driver. A Dutch couple and a Pakistani man. I chatted to him a fair bit and he was out in China on business, with a day off in Beijing before he travelled all around the country to see his suppliers. Fair enough!

I was very amazed with the tour we went on. For £24 we got to see the ming tombs, the great wall and had lunch included and transport each way. The numbers of us as well made it instantly good value. However, we realised why it was so cheap. We had 3 things I did not know about (Laura knew few details as she booked the tickets). We saw a jade factory, a silk factory and a tea house where we could be part of a Chinese "tea ceremony". They were all quite informative and good fun, but right from the off at the Jade factory in the morning, we could see what they were - ploys to get the Westerners into the gift shop to buy some stuff at stupidly high prices. None of us bought anything from any of them - culminating at the silk mill (the last stop for the day) when we were shown the silk making process then went straight to the duvet shop, where the woman quite bluntly asked us if we wanted to buy one - to which the Dutch woman in our group said so brilliantly and so simply "No". The sales woman looked well pissed off, but we all thought it was hilarious.

As for the things we knew a lot about - the ming tombs, wall and the lunch - they were all fantastic. The ming tombs were very very cool, hidden away at the bottom of mountains, only 3 of them have been restored. We saw one of them, and as we were there so early (9am) it was essentially just us and a couple of others there - it made such a pleasant change to the tourist attractions in Beijing. It was very tranquil and the monumental buildings to the Emperor were very similar to the religious temples in the city and elsewhere.

After the jade factory and the Ming tombs came the great wall, the main event, at Mutianyu. We decided to go to this section because it was less touristy than Badaling (another restored section of the wall closer to Beijing). Our friends from Bromsgrove - Tom and Lauren had also recently visited it and recommended this section. The problem I had with it was the fact that EVERYONE said it was less touristy - surely if everyone goes there it can't be great? But, I was surprised, pleasantly again when there were few people on the wall. I know why to be fair, the wall was stupidly steep where we were, but was restored enough to see it all. The only downsides were the mist (visibility was pretty poor) and the humidity (my t-shirt was absolutely drenched by the end of it), people were finding me quite amusing with sweat rolling down me, whilst everyone else was coping OK.

Another particular highlight of the wall was the manner we reached it. The wall is up in the mountains, it would have taken a good part of the two hours of our free time to get up there so we (as the others did) took the "cable car" up. It was quite expensive and was not included in the price (£6.50) but was worth it. It was like a ski lift, was very rickety but was part of the experience. Getting down was even better. On the ticket it had two sections - "cable car" and "toboggan". As we were ascending on the ski lift, you could quite clearly see a metal slide winding its way down the mountain. I was like a child at Christmas. A giant slide, down a mountain. It was SO fun! I got told off 3 times for going too fast though! Haha, great times. For those who wouldn't like it, the return could be made by the ski lift, but the slide was amazing!

Lunch was also a pleasant highlight where we all shared about 6/7 different plates of Chinese food. In the afternoon the tea ceremony was interesting - although I don't think I'll be moving from PG tips to Chinese tea anytime soon - the 5 year old black tea was quite nice though!

We got back to the hotel at about 16:30 and were pleased with the tour. We chilled out in the afternoon and headed out for tea in the evening. We had our hopes on a duck restaurant but unfortunately couldn't find one. We know where one is now, so will be going there tomorrow - our last meal in Beijing before Shanghai and the overnight train in a seat. Fun!