Beijing Post 8: Day 4 Temple of Heaven, The Pearl Market and Back to Seoul Again

For our last day in Beijing we decided to head over to the Temple of Heaven. It was a close by ride in the taxi, probably only about 10 minutes or 30 RMB (approx. $4.00 USD). Entrance into the temple was 60 RMB. The temple was absolutly beautiful. Since everything was updated for the Beijing Olympics last summer, the paint was sparkling and fresh. I was going to write more about this place, but I'm just finally posting this almost a month later, so just enjoy the photos!

Beijing Post 7: Day 2 Kung Fu Show At The Red Theater

Monday evening we made it back just in time to catch our ride to the Kung Fu show that we booked through our hostel. For just 125 rmb/ person (approx. $19.00 USD) the hostel booked us tickets and provided transportation to see a Kung Fu show that is performed every night twice an evening at the Red Theater.

A photo my friend took steathily during the show...

We arrived quite early and found we had quite decent seats. Finally the show started and we had an amazing experience. Amazingly, the entire performance was conducted in English, with the exception of some fo the songs, for which they provided overtitles as a translation. The show told the story of a young boy who was left by his mother to study kung fu, and how he came over his fears and weaknesses to become a great kung fu master. It was not just some exhibition of fighting skills, but a play performed through dance, song and some demonstration of kung fu skills.

Me with some of the young boy performers after the show

One of the many amazing things about this show were the young children performers. Most of them looked only about 8 or 9 years old, but they were able to do the most amazing things with thier bodies.

All the main performers after the show

After the show was complete, there was an opportuinty to pay 20 rmb and go on stage and take a photo with the actors. Asia really is just one giant photo op for natives and forigners alike. I was too cheap to pay to take a photo with the actors, but two of my friends went up and did it. The Chinese have really mastered capitalism you know... Koreans would never dream of charging for something like that... which is why I love Korea so much. :-)

Beijing Post 5: Day 2, Bird's Nest

Well, it may have only been from a car window, but I drove by the famed Olympic "Bird's Nest" Stadium twice while in Beijing. It's definitely something to see. Evidently you can't go inside, and we didn't have time to go to the Olympic park. So, we had to just take our view from the car window.

Beijing Post 3: Day 2, The Great Wall of China and the Ming Tombs

As soon as we arrived in Beijing, we made plans to go to the Great Wall on Sunday. We informed the woman at the receptionist desk that we wanted to go to Badaling, which is the portion of the wall closest to Beijing (only an hour and a half away). Badaling tends to be the most popular place to view the wall, since, not only is it so close to the city, but it has also been restored.

To our request, the woman at the receptionist desk said.. why would you go there? You can go to another one further away from Beijing, enjoy a nice hike, and stay away from the crowds. We didn't even think about it for a minute. The program she wanted us to sign up for was a 4 hour trip there, and 4 hours back, plus an 8k hike up to the wall. A. We're not trekkers, and B. we only had 4 days to see Beijing. We didn't want to spend it in a van. So, seeing as how we had such a huge group of people (9 people when we were all together) we asked if we could hire a taxi, and if the cost would be reasonable. Well, as it turned out, the receptionist was able to book us our own private van for only 135 yuan per person (about $20.00 USD) to take us to, not only the wall, but also to the Ming Tombs. This was a great deal for us, since the regular tour with a bunch of people we didn't know would have cost us about the same, and we got our own private chauffeur.

One catch. The receptionist insisted that we leave at 5:30 am to beat the crowds, which she said, would be unbearable. Judging from our experience eat the Forbidden City the day before, this advice seemed to make sense. So, as much as we begrudged it, we decided that we'd get up at 5 and take the taxi at 5:30.

We made it to the wall at exactly 7:00, it took exactly 1.5 hours to get there. As we walked up to the wall we realized that we could either walk on the wall going up to the left, or going up to the right. Now, either there's something we don't know.. or we're just too free thinking... I'm not sure which, but we looked at the two sides and saw that one side was virtually empty of people, and the other side was starting to get crowded, even at 7:00 AM. For us, it was a no-brainer to go up the side with no people.

Crowded side

Our side...

I was thinking about the fact that people always say that they climbed the great wall, and not walked on the great wall. It makes so much more sense now... Just look at these stairs... here we were going down, but we had to climb these stairs to get up to the top of the highest peak. That was the best workout I've had in a while. I don't know what was harder. The stairs, or the steep incline of the wall when there were no stairs....

On nearly every brick on the wall there was graffiti. Since I can't really read Chinese, I like the look of it, actually. But, of course, who knows what it really says...

Here's the ridiculous hats that were super popular with the Chinese tourists.

At 9:00 am we got back in our van and headed over to the Ming Tombs, which were about an hour away (though, I think our taxi driver got lost). Honestly, this wasn't the most exciting part of the trip, but if you have the time, if for no other reason, it's just nice to see the scenery.

Entrance gate to the Ming Tombs

Inside the underground tombs

A nice walk around the perimeter

At noon we met our driver again, and headed back to Beijing. It was hard to believe that it was only noon, since we had been going since 5:00 am.

Beijing Post 1: The Forbidden City and Tienamen Square

I guess I never mentioned it since I've been uber busy lately, but I went to Beijing for our long weekend for Buddha's Birthday/Children's Day. It was definitely my favorite trip out of the country so far and definitely a must see for Asia.



We stayed at a great hostel called Peking Downtown Backpacker's Association. It is probably one of the best, if not the best hostel I've ever stayed at. We had a 4 person room which was 75RMB for the night ($11.00 USD/ 13,000 KRW). Our room had a private bathroom, with shampoo and soap included. The beds were pretty nice... for a hostel too. But the best part about the hostel was the staff. They were so helpful with everything and always got us to where we wanted to go by writing directions for us in Chinese so we could give them to cab drivers, or explaining how to get around on the bus. Since we had a huge group (9 people), they were able to hook us up with with our own private tours that cost the same as the group tours.

Anyway, the first thing we did when we got to Beijing was to head over to the Forbidden City. We got there at 3:30 and it closed at 5:00, so it didn't give us much time to look around. But, worse than that was the crowds here. This weekend was also a long weekend for China as well, and there were so many Chinese tourists, along with other tourists in the city that everything was so overcrowded on the weekend. We purchased tickets to see a special exhibition inside the Forbidden City, so we felt really rushed to get there, and it was on the opposite side of the palace.

Here is the entrance of The Forbidden City.

We quickly made our way through and I really didn't get a chance to take in much or get to understand much about the Forbidden City. I guess I'll have to go back to Beijing to go again.... preferably not on a long weekend.

We finally made our way to the special artifacts exhibition. If you like jewelry and that sort of thing, then you'll really like this part of the Forbidden City. It was nice there too because there weren't many people in there. I could finally breathe again...

A crown in the artifacts exhibition

After we made our way through the Forbidden City, we walked to Tienanmen Square. I remember when I was in high school I wrote a huge term paper on the Tienanmen Square Massacre. I had always wondered what it would look like in person. Really, it's not at all how I pictured it... but then again, I'm sure a lot has changed in the past 20 years since it happened.

There were tons of tourists walking around the square. Most of them were Chinese tourists, visiting Beijing for the long weekend
. This is Tienanmen. The actual gate itself.


There were police (military?) everywhere because every evening at sundown they have a flag lowering ceremony.

Here is the flag lowering ceremony. There were so many people here I couldn't see anything! I'm still short, even in China....