China Trip 2/Part 3 - Beijing

And now, onto the third and most amazing part of my China trip - Beijing!!! After Xi'an, as I mentioned before, I took a night train to Beijing, which took 11 hours but was totally relaxing as I had a four-person cabin with bunk beds and could sleep comfortably through the night. When I arrived in Beijing in the morning, I was already surprised by the weather: clear blue sky and about 24 degrees Celsius, no sign of smog or pollution.

First, I dropped off my luggage at the hostel and then headed out. I had initially planned to visit the Forbidden City, but since there was already an extremely long queue for the security check at 10 a.m., I spontaneously changed my plan and went to the Temple of Heaven instead. I found it really beautiful and it looked different from all the other temples I had seen.

After that, I passed by the Pearl Market, which has nothing to do with pearls but is actually a flea market where you can buy all kinds of fake products. In the evening, I wandered around Dashilan Street and that was pretty much it. Since I walked everywhere and didn't use the subway, it took quite a bit of time to get around. But the next day, I did much more ;)

Day 2: This time, I got up early to avoid the long queue for the Forbidden City's security check and finally got inside around 9:30 a.m. Since some people had told me that you can spend half a day to a whole day there, I didn't have much planned. It was indeed huge and really beautiful, but after about 1.5 hours, I was already done :D I have to admit that I didn't explore every alley and side temple because they all start to look the same after a while, but half a day or a whole day is way too much.

Since I still had the entire rest of the day free, I went to Jingshan Park next, which is right outside the Forbidden City and has a small hill from which you can overlook the Forbidden City. It took me about 15 minutes to climb the hill, and then I went to the next park next door - Beihai Park. The park had a few more things to offer and there was also a lake where the pedal boats looked more like small cars because the whole lake was filled with them. Still really beautiful and had some interesting sights to see. Around noon, I took a nap on a park bench and then headed to the Summer Palace.

There, it was the same again, a lake filled with pedal boats, but a really beautiful and huge park with different temples and buildings. I don't think I even saw half of it even though I spent 3 hours there wandering around. And then I just went back to the hostel.

Day 3 was the absolute highlight of my trip to China and the main reason why I wanted to go to China in the first place - a trip to the Great Wall!!! I chose the hostel where I stayed because it had great recommendations for the Great Wall tour, and I was not disappointed. We had amazing weather, a fantastic view, and the promise that we would go to a section of the wall where there were no other tourists was kept. So in the morning, we were picked up at the hostel, driven out of Beijing to the wall, given a brief introduction and history, and then had three hours to hike on the wall. It was really hot and exhausting, as about 2.5 kilometers out of the total 3 kilometers were all steps (and then the same all the way back), but it was totally worth it. I was really impressed and got my daily workout ;)

On the last day, I hardly knew what else to do, but I eventually found something. I went to the Lama Temple with two girls from the hostel, checked out a Hutong, wandered around the area, and then it was time to go back to Hong Kong ;)

So Beijing really impressed me, probably also because of the great weather, but the sights and, of course, the Great Wall were all really beautiful! :)))