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China Part II - Beijing

We loved Beijing, the hostcity of the 2008 Olympics, which definitely has a lot more to offer! After a first day of relaxation in our hostel - which was really nice, met nice people, had great food and check this: a free beer-coupon when ordering breakfast: How cool is that! - we started exploring the many sights and weird, oh no, I should say different, way of the Chinese.

We started off with the famous Tianenmen Square, being just a block from our Hotel, which right away shows the diziplined guards and Mao Memorial Hall right in the middle. After rioting a bit on the square ;0, we went for the Forbidden City where the Last Emperor, Pu Yi, was locked in most of his life with his hundreds of servants. Well he didn't have to be bored as he could play basketball every day; there is a hoop right in the middle of the Forbidden City! Anyway, it was very impressive to see all the architecture but was also huge; it apparently is the largest surviving palace complex in the world.

The next day we decided to see Beijing the Beijing - or Dutch- style, by bike! As there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing according to a song, we rented 2 of them and covered a great part of the city; even biked right through the Forbidden City! (it apparently wasnt forbidden..).

We also visited the former Imperials sights like the Summer Palace and the 'Temple of Heaven'; the latter one being fun especially to watch all the Chinese gather and enjoy themselves; playing carts, dancing (to Jingle Bells! :)), sing Opera and play guitar etc. Very entertaining. I even showed them some Dutch house-moves! To ensure to be tired and Zaydong's 'arrastre' (named after Zedong Mao ;0), we went on to the huge black Market. The Chinese are world champion in copying anything, from I-phones to watches, Jordans, bags etc. or as I recently read in the newspaper, the Joint Strike Fighter! (which we couldn't buy there... yet).

After that though, and buying stuff for Zaydong's imports/exports, we noticed we had to ship stuff home - so a package is on its way by boat to Holland, hopefully arriving before Sinterklaas's boat..

To relax a bit back we thought a little traditional Chinese massage would be welcoming - it was the best! I decided to have my back cracked, whereas Zayde got a genuine 'copping' Massage, where they put vacuum-burned 'cups' on you which apparently suck all the toxins out.. so we read... as the Chinese massager couldn't tell us in English... but he sure knew his stuff!

All newborn, with a straightened back and without toxins, we went to see one of the highlights of China the next day; the Great Wall. And I can tell you, it is a great wall! We also booked a non-touristic tour, which meant we had the Wall to ourselves together with our little Chinese tourguide. Really cool, with nice views, as we hiked a couple of Kilometres of the 6400(!) it covers within China. At its peak, the 'Ming' Wall was guarded by more than one million men, though it was never really needed.. Even more sad as somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese, could be couple more or less, died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall..

Anyway it was quite impressive. It is claimed that the Great Wall is "the mightiest work of man, the only one that would be visible to the human eye from the moon"...

To top it all of, we had diner served with the typical Peking Duck (aka Peking Pato!); been there, seen it, done it (as you can see from the pictures!).

Currently we are in the middle of our Transsiberian Adventure - already seen parts of Mongolia - which is all coming up in our next Blog. So as most of the Dutch are celebrating our famous Queensday, the rest possibly being off for May 1st, we will create our own little party whilst being 26 hours on the train tomorrow from Ulaanbaatar to Irkutsk, Russia!

So, 'Nastrovia' to the Queen etc. etc. and to you all... Be in touch with the Dutch!