Beijing marks the end of the Trans-Mongolian railway of our train ride from Ulaanbaatar. Upon arrival in Beijing, we had a very busy 4 days in Beijing. With 4 days in Beijing, you can see all of the following:
- Temple of Heaven
- Great Wall of China – we chose to visit the Mutianyu section of the wall as several of the sections closer to Beijing are notoriously busy. We took a Mutianyu Great Wall of China Tour. The cool thing about this section is that you can cable car up or down, saving you a steep hike, and you can take an alpine slide down! Funny Story: a Chinese family set off before me and the guide made me wait a long time – I was getting too impatient. But a few minutes into the ride, I discovered why… the family was braking all the way down and going way too slow. It was silly slow, but at least I got to enjoy a few minutes of thrills.
- Summer Palace – the highlight of this place was the little village built on the canal.
- Many Parks
- Dumpling night at the hostel & Peking Duck – the hostel made the yummiest dumplings – all we could eat. And some of the folks went out for Peking Duck one night.
- Forbidden City – this place is massive. Insider Tips: at the time I visited, you could only enter at the southern entrance. Just avoid the bathrooms (one of the nastiest toilets I’ve ever seen) and the pedi-cap drivers at the northern exit who are 100% scams – it’s cheaper to take a regular taxi anywhere.
- Tiananmen Square – check out this smog!
- The night market where you can eat lots of creepy crawlies
- Dinner on Ghost Street, full of it’s red lamps. We were going for a late dinner so we had McD’s as a mid afternoon snack.
Once the smog cleared, it was actually a nice day.
What amazed me about China was the vast number of Chinese tourists and lack of western tourists. Even though we were in the high season, in my 4 days in Beijing it felt like only 1% of the tourists were from western countries.
Are you heading to China? Check out this packing list for China.
Traveled Aug, 2012
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