For those that don’t know, Beijing is actually next to a
desert and the desert is increasing
in size due to deforestation, pollution, and climate change so the summers may
be getting hotter and drier soon.
Day One
To start, I began in one of the more famous places-Tienanmen
Square. The line to get to Tienanmen square is insane, with hundreds of people
lining up down two city blocks to get inside. Once you are at the gate you show
your passport to the guard and place any bags you have through an X-ray. The
government doesn’t like to talk about the riot that happened in the square and
have actually banned books and movies on the topic from coming into China but I
was surprised to hear English speaking tour guides talking about it freely to
their groups.
Through the square you can enter the Forbidden City…or part
of it. The Forbidden City is where the emperor, advisers, and his courtesans
lived but it is split into several areas. The further most area is where the
advisers lived, then the inner circles would be the courtesans. Those in the
inner circle were never allowed to leave once inside. No men were allowed
inside this circle as well as the courtesans jobs were to give birth to the
heir and didn’t want any other man to possibly impregnate the courtesans. Since
children died very easily back in the day the idea is that the more women there
are to impregnate, the higher chance that there will be a living heir. In
Western culture we usually view courtesans as dirty and gross prostitutes, but
these women were usually chosen from elite or famous families. These women not
only were to give birth but to also strengthen ties with the emperor and these
elite families. Their family’s status
would increase exponentially if their child was chosen as the heir.
You can watch a famous Chinese TV show about it called Empresses in the Palace.
When I went to buy my ticket to get inside the inner circle
of the Forbidden City I was surprised that by 10:00 am that all the tickets for
that day and the next day were sold out. So the pictures you have are from the
outside gate and the garden nearby.
Next, I went to Beihai Park which is a massive. It is 70
hectacres of land and 39 hectacres of water
While I was there I
went inside a temple, several pavilions, and got to see “heaven.” In Buddhist
temples they will sometimes have a recreation of what they believe heaven looks
like. The one I saw was basically a small hill and in the past a person could
climb on it and go through the tunnels and sidewalks.
Usually
the heavens will be surrounded by Buddhas or angels.
After that I went to the Lama temple otherwise known as Yonghegong
Temple. There are several worshiping areas with their own special Buddha,
painting, and carving that are in these temples and this one’s specialty was a
statue that was made out of one tree and stood at least three stories tall. It
was in the Guinness World Book of Records! After all that walking I had 24,000
steps recorded on my phone and was wiped out.
Day Two
My hotel, Swissotel, offered a tour package of the most popular
places to see in Beijing and gladly signed up. A tour bus picked me up at 6:45
am and along the way picked up other tour members from other hotels. People
from Germany, USA, and Ireland were all on the bus with me which was cool. A man
from Ireland and I were the only ones that taught in China and everyone else
was there for fun or short-term business.
We began the tour by going to a silk museum. At the museum (as
our tour guide Murphey told us it was more of a store) we got to see the silk cocoons
that the worms weave. If the worm dies inside the cocoon, then the silk is
thrown into hot water and stretched out and the worm is sold to be eaten as a
snack. Our group was handed a cocoon and told to stretch it out as much as we could,
and we got about 5 feet in diameter without snapping it. Silk is the top export
of China currently and most Chinese people will buy silk wedding clothes or
silk wedding sheets.
The second stop was at the Sacred Way. The Sacred Way is the
road that goes from the Forbidden City to the Ming Tombs. The tombs span several
mountains and is the burial place of royalty along with important generals and
courtesans. Our group only walked down the famous sidewalk that has several statues
of animals and people. When the emperor or empress died, they were taken down
the 7.3 km, or 4.5 miles, to their resting place. The Sacred Way was only
supposed to be touched by the emperor so the servants carrying his coffin would
lift the coffin with poles and walk on the darker sidewalk.
After the Sacred Way we headed to a Jade Museum (store). The
Jade Museum had huge pieces of jade cut out in amazing shapes such as a throne,
a ship, and animals. We learned about the different types of jade and how to
tell real jade from fake. One way to tell if a piece is jade or glass is by
tapping it and listening for a specific sound. Jade will sound higher pitched
than glass. Another way is by scratching the piece onto glass; glass on glass
will scratch but jade on glass will not leave a mark. If you ever go to China
there are about a million jade shops, but many could be fake, so just be on the
lookout.
Last, but certainly not the least, we visited The Great
Wall! The Great Wall are actually walls with several different sections you can
visit. (Zhou, 2018) You can read about
them here. The
part I visited was Mutainyu. If you ever want to visit the Great Wall the first
thing you should know is that it isn’t going to be next to your hotel, all the
walls are miles away from the city so it will take a few hours to drive out
there. Once you arrive by car or bus you can either walk up to the wall or take
a cable car. It costs extra to come and go by cable car but in my mind you get
more time to be on the wall.
When I was walking along the wall I told myself I would make
it to the next fortification but every couple of steps I met a person/couple
and we got to talking. I talked to a couple honeymooning from Germany, sisters-in-law
from USA, a couple on vacation who were from India but immigrated to USA, and a
woman from Russia. I made it down one staircase but met a lot of cool people along
the way.
Not to mention the wall is beautiful and at one point I
stood on the wall and thought, “I can’t believe I’m really here. I am standing
on one of the most famous places in the world. Hundreds of miles away from my hometown.”
You really feel special standing on the wall.
Our wall is not very crowded unlike the Badaling wall. Our
tour guide told us that Badaling is the most popular one but it also is
shoulder-to-shoulder walking traffic the entire way. The German honeymoon couple
told me that they had visited that wall the day before and thought it was a
nightmare.
Gubeikou is another popular one for those who like hiking
because it is covered in vines and is quite steep, however parts of it are condemned.
This blogger went and
liked it a lot.
If you would like to read on the history of the Great Wall,
go here!
Our bus took us home and that is when I got a taste of Beijing
rush hour. To go three blocks took us about 20 minutes so when we got a few
blocks within our hotels we were told to get off. Half of the bus just got off
at a subway station.
In my opinion, this was a wonderful tour and would go again!
I wish I had another day in Beijing just to visit another wall or maybe get
another chance to see the Forbidden City or try Peking Duck. Who knows, maybe I
will get another chance someday.
Kelly. (2018, September 7). Beihai Park, Beijing.
Retrieved from China Highlights:
https://www.chinahighlights.com/beijing/attraction/beihai-park.htm
Zhou, R. (2018, July 25). The Best 10
Sections/Parts of the Great Wall to Visit. Retrieved from China
Highlights: https://www.chinahighlights.com/greatwall/section/
This definitely sounds like you had a great visit!
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