My friend Kris and I decided to travel by bullet train to Beijing, a trip of 4 1/2 hrs. This is probably the biggest crowd we've had to fight through.
We were in a beautiful hotel overlooking Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City. On our first day we were picked up by Ling, who Kris tutored in English back in Connecticut, and her husband Mike, who drove us to the Great Wall. I'm still smiling here because I didn't know there were ~1000 steps to get to the Wall from this parking lot. (The chair lift is for sissies, right?) Our legs hurt the next day! (Wikipedia said 4000 steps, but we don't think that's true.)
Some sights on the Wall:
Me on the guard tower |
Hard to believe I'm standing on this ancient wall. |
How did they get all these granite blocks up here? |
Then on to our Chinese lunch:
One of these fish will be our lunch |
Our hosts - Mike and Ling |
Starting top L: corn soup, spiced meat, egg/tree leaves, C noodles, our fish, tofu and fungus |
We passed by the 2008 Olympic sights, but didn't stop.
Olympic Headquarters |
On to the Summer Palace of the emperors. I thought it would be one building, but it turned out to be a whole complex of structures
elaborately decorated and furnished
in a forest setting, overlooking a lovely lake:
This is called 17-hole bridge (but I didn't get the whole thing) |
WOW! what a trip
ReplyDeletelove that jacket!
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