Sightseeing

Wow, where do I start! The last couple of days have been pretty manic - I'm trying to fit in as much sightseeing over the 3 full days I'm in Beijing as possible. I've been to many tourist areas and feel like I've only just scratched the surface. It's a fantastic place and I'd recommend it to anyone to come visit!

Yesterday, armed with my Beijing city map I started walking from the hotel with an aim not to stray too far and get lost - I ended up walking miles..!

I found I'm actually really close to the Forbidden City. It seems that most people in China use their local park as a community centre - in a stroll around Jingshan park I found people dancing, flying kites, playing cards, chatting, practicing marshall arts, playing music, singing, exercising - the park had such an open community feeling and it was great to see what the Beijing residents spend their time doing. The park had one main tower/pavilion at the very top of the hill, and several either side with some fantastic views of Beijing from the top. Jingshen park was a former Imperial garden and used to be in the grounds of the palace - it was at Jingshen park that one of the Chinese Emperors hanged himself when a peasant uprising army took Beijing in 1644 and the top tower/pavilion is a memorial to the Emperor.

I then walked to Belhai park to the West of Jingshen park and climbed to the top of the island in the middle where a white dagoba stands - inside the white dagoba is Buddhist scriptures. The whole park was amazingly picturesque and there were small pavilions that had musicians in playing along the waterfront, monuments and statues everywhere and plenty of traditional style chinese buildings - it's really difficult to explain in words however I've taken plenty of pictures so I'll put some photo's online when I get to Yantai and the computers are free to use.

I went to the world famous (not for the right reasons!) Tiananmen square - the square is the largest municipal square in the whole world. The Chinese are preparing for the Olympic games next year and they were starting to prepare the olympic displays for all the visitors from across the world. I've just tried accessing the Wikipedia site for the square however the Chinese have a country level firewall and it restricts what content people can view on chinese internet - it is heavily censored and I'm guessing that the history of the square is a bit of a touchy subject!

In the evening my tour guide Lily picked me up and we went to the Beijing Opera - this is a mix between traditional operas and amazing acrobatics - they kindly provide wireless headphones with subtitles in English so you know what is going on!!

This morning Lily picked me up bright and early and I went on another mad dash around Beijing - we went to the zoo to see the Pandas, followed by a trip to the silk market, the Beijing Bell and Drum tower, a rickshaw ride around the hutongs, I had lunch at Mr Lees, a friend of Lilys in his house in the hutong area, a trip to the chinese doctors for a doctor to explain to me how chinese medicine works, a walk around a temple with the largest Buddha carved out of a single piece of wood in the world (It was over 60feet tall!) and then finished off at at the china tea company where they taught me how to drink chinese tea and then tried many of the different varieties!

I've just eaten dinner and I'm about to go to Qianjai - a lake where Lily has told me there is live music on an evening. I've got trekking on the great wall of China tomorrow - so no doubt will have more to say when I get back...