nǐ hǎo...! Everyone...!

That was to be my first word in what turned out to be my favourite country. I hope over the next few blog entries I can show you why..!

There's a lot to the China blog entries...but...I promise they'll be of interest...! So lay back with a Jasmine T and let me transport you to the wonderful world of the orient...

First up...It was March when I arrived...which meant my T-shirt and vest was a bad choice of atire on arrival and would get me about as far as a Panda on Valium...it was about sub zero or felt like it outside the airport...!!! burrrrr

For most of my stay in Beijing (1 week) I stayed with Fei who was a great host...!(and I'll be expecting you in Edinburgh at some point within 5 years...I'm counting the days!!!) A big thank you to Leng as well... cheers for all you help and the Intro to Beijing!)

First stop...The forbidden City...!

Managing to avoid the Chinese T scam where attractive local girls come up and say they want to practise there English in a T house where the cup of T ends up costing anywhere between 50 and 80 pounds...! they bring out the bouncers if you don`t pay up...!

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. Located in the middle of Beijing it now houses the Palace Museum. (which in itself was a spectical!) For almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Its also where they filmed ´the last emperor´

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms[1] and covers 720,000 m2 (7,800,000 sq ft). The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,[2] and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. It also has the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Afterwards I walked staight out of the Forbidden city and into Jingshan Park... a very layed back park that had a great viewpoint back over the Forbidden city...The park was dotted with mucians and interesting groups of Jianzi players...some of whom were easliy in their 70's and were arguably more skillful than Ronaldo...! (doesn`t matter which Ronaldo!)

And then onto the Great Wall where I was to be Scamed...! bloody taxi drivers...!

The bus was to take 2 hours to a small town where I would then take a bus costing 15 RMB (1.5 pounds) to the wall...What actually happened was after about an hour the bus stopped, a random guy came on and pointed to me to get off...I must also add the driver agreed with this gesture...! having to put my shoes on as I`d taken them off for comfort...and tidying up my lunch which was a desginer ´pot noodle´ with tubs of sauces...nightmare...! I stupidly got off the bus where I was confronted by a swarm of taxi drivers (quite literally buzzing all over me) giving me different prices....! B#$&*+s!!!
I had to take one of them in the end feelling cheated I payed him half as much as they had originally offered...I Later met some American guys who I climbed part of the wall with...one of them could speak chinese...and translated what the driver was trying to tell me...

"there aren´t any buses for your return jounrey so I´ll meet you back here at 6pm"?!

This was a lie..! again...! could you believe it...! anyway the Wall turned out to be more than worth it...!

The Great Wall of China "long fortress" is a series of stone and earthen fortifications, located in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups.
Several walls have been built since the 5th century BC that are referred to collectively as the Great Wall, which has been rebuilt and maintained from the 5th century BC through the 16th century.
One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains; the majority of the existing wall was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east, to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. The most comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has recently concluded that the entire Great Wall, with all of its branches, stretches for 8,851.8 km (5,500.3 mi). This is made up of 6,259.6 km (3,889.5 mi) sections of actual wall, 359.7 km (223.5 mi) of trenches and 2,232.5 km (1,387.2 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers.

Ofcourse I remeber all the figures above... I started and ended at the `Sumatia´ gate one of three...although I really didn` go that far...I could appreciate just what a Marvel this man made structure is...the surrounding lanscape was truly blissful...

(it cannot be seen from space for those of us (me) that thought it could...)!

written by  willrob on March 8, 2010 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
Send a Compliment

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i miss u man !

i wanna leave Edinburgh and see the world too !!

glad ur doin this bro.
enjoy china !

written by  onesp on August 30, 2010

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