We went to Beijing over Spring Break last week, and now we need a vacation from our vacation. We figured it was about time to go to Beijing since we've been living in HK for almost 3 years now. What people don't understand, however, is that it is not easy or cheap to go to mainland China, even though we have a HK ID. We have to get a visa (in advance) which is very expensive compared to any other country we've ever traveled to.
We really enjoyed seeing the history of Beijing, however it is definitely not somewhere we would consider living. Beijing was extremely crowded and much bigger than we expected. Somewhere around 22-25 million people live there. People also spoke way less English there than in HK, and you know there's no hope of us becoming fluent in Mandarin. On top of that, we went during the windy season, and there was lots of dirt and dust in the air, blowing in from Mongolia.
It was somewhat stressful having Finley with us, because people were so intrigued by him, and everyone wanted to take his photo or touch him. He was constantly pointed at, stared at, and talked about (though I couldn't understand what they were saying). People would point at him and say, "Angel!" (How they knew that particular word, I don't know.) Our tour guide to the Great Wall called him "Dumpling" the entire day. One afternoon, we stopped to feed Finley in a pedestrian street and sat down at a bench in a relatively uncrowded area. Within seconds, people started gathering to watch the spectacle of this amazingly pale, blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby eating. We ended up with a crowd of a good 15-20 people completely captivated by his eating. At that point, I gave up on trying to discourage people taking photos of him and just had to laugh at the situation.
All that said, we still enjoyed the trip and are definitely glad we went. How could we pass up the opportunity to visit such an important historical place via a 3 hour plane ride?
This is outside the entrance to the Forbidden City, where the emperors lived. (Tiananmen Square is right across the street.)
The next few photos are inside the Forbidden City.
One of the streets where we had lunch. The bright red lanterns are such a contrast to the grey city.
View from a pedestrian bridge over the street. There was usually way more traffic than this.
The rest of the photos are from the Summer Palace, where the emperors would go for a retreat from the city during summer.
We climbed up to the top of this tower.
Elaborate roof.
A rare thousand-handed Buddha inside the tower.
