4 days in Beijing (I’m in the 1%!)

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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