Day 3 - Exploring the wonders of Beijing

After an absolutely wonderful sleep where the bed was big, soft and comfortable, we woke this morning to a smoggy day. We had expected that for China so were not disappointed at all.

A shower to wash the hair (which was looking a tad sad after a few days), then dressed, gathered our things for the day and we headed off to breakfast.

Our breakfasts are included in all of our hotels which means you can get a good start on fuelling the body given you do not know when the next meal may be! The hotel provided a wonderful assortment of breakfast items ... both Chinese and Western style. The coffee was also fantastic!

And then we headed to the lobby to meet William ... 5 minutes earlier than we were scheduled. We had had a good laugh with him yesterday about the different types of tourists and their version of ‘on time’. We told him we were Phillips’s and he wouldn’t be kept waiting.

Mr Zhou was waiting in the car park so we bundled into the car and headed off to Tiananmen Square. William told us that we would have to queue for some time as there were 3 checkpoints we would need to pass through  ... some involving bag checks, some where we had to show our passport, some where we were wanded to make sure we were not taking anything in to the political centre of China. I checked with him what could or could not be photographed ... basically anything apart from the uniformed soldiers.

After a wait with our 20,000 friends ... where the line kept moving at a fairly steady pace ... we were given access to the stairs that took us under the major road and up into the Square. 

William gave us the run down of the area  ... the Memorial Hall where the body of Chairman Mao lies in rest (and where thousands were lining up to pay their respects), the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People (parliament buildings) and the National Museum of China. The Square is just over 20 hectares in size and can hold up to a million people. Tiananmen means "Gate of Heavenly Peace" ... which separates it from the Forbidden City. 

Once William had given us the overview, the political history of China, the Cultural Revolution and the role of Mao Zedong he allowed us time to wander and explore. This gave us time to see some of the buildings up closer and to just take in the size and expanse of the Square.

We then headed on to the underpass that would bring us up to the Tiananmen Gate itself. Here the portrait of Mao hangs (and yes his eyes do follow you) with banners on either side which read "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and "Long Live the Great Solidarity of the World's Peoples". Two lions stand in front of the gate as a protector of humans from evil. Two stone columns also stand in front of the gate with animals on top. We were lucky to arrive in time to see the end of the scheduled fountain show from the Canal in front of the gate.

Passing through the gate (more checkpoints) we entered the Forbidden City ... the imperial palace complex. It was the residence for 24 Ming and Qing dynasty emperors and the centre of political power in China from 1420 to 1924.

The complex is said to consist of 9,999 rooms (no ... we did not see them all!) and covers 72 hectares. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site ... and is said to have 14 million visitors per year (that's just under 40,000 a day!).

Again William was a wonderful guide ... providing us with stories about the palace, the emperors, the queens and the concubines. History of who became emperor and why ... and all the intricacies involved in the political world that was the China of those times.  

We had plenty if time to walk from one end to the other  ... looking at all the different buildings and learning about their functions. Gates, towers, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, palaces, tea rooms, reception rooms, buildings for the concubines and the eunuchs. Museums about the significance of jade, life in the palace, artefacts, etc. It is mind boggling the sheer size of the complex.

We ended at the Palace Gardens ... the smallest area of the complex but it was spectacular nonetheless. Again beds of peonies, daisies, large trees and rocks gave this a beautiful, calming feel ... despite the thousand or so friends we shared it with. 

Throughout the Forbidden City (called that because access for the ordinary folk was forbidden) were visitors from different provinces of China in their traditional dress. This gave us an added cultural bonus to the site.

And then we left the Forbidden City having  walked from the South Gate (Tiananmen) to the North Gate (Gate of Divine Might), which incidentally dropped us at the entrance to Jingshan Park, which we visited yesterday. We walked along between the moat that surrounds the walls of the city and the road that runs beside it ... heading to meet Mr Zhou our faithful and dependable driver.

Our next stop was to visit a local family in the Hutong area. A Hutong is a type of narrow street or alley and are prominent in the northern part of Beijing. Here quadrangle houses are shared by many families. They are small and yet contain the living space for many people. We visited one man's house ... where he has two rooms and the rest of the buildings are occupied by his cousins. He welcomed us in, poured us a jasmine tea and offered us fried dough covered in sugar (like crispy donut bites) and Hawthorn fruit (which look like tiny apples but are sweet to bite and then leave a sour taste in your mouth). His house (two rooms remember) was neat and tidy and he boasts that he had a toilet upstairs ... most of the hutong houses do not have toilets so the residents use a shared public toilet facility located outside the main door of the home. He took us to his roof garden ... a shared family space for all of the people who live in that one house (about 50 people). We felt incredibly grateful to this man for allowing us into his home (a vital financial stream for his family).

(Ian here) Lunch was just across the road from the Hutong district at a popular dumpling restaurant. We tried to be cautious with our ordering ... William added a few dishes. In the end it was vegetarian dumplings, kung pao chicken with nuts, Yangzhou style fried rice and sauteed bok choy, plus more dumplings for William. Way too much food, but ... Yum Yum, Yum Yum Yum. We were so pleased when William suggested we move the scheduled Peking Duck dinner to tomorrow. After this scrumptious lunch we won't need much food tonight.

Our last stop for the day was the Temple of Heaven, a large heavily forested complex of imperial buildings south of the city that was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest. Bad harvest = Civil unrest = Downfall of dynasty, so it was the Emperors' job (being closest to God) to deliver good rains. Built in 1420 under Emperor Judy, like so many buildings we've seen in the last 2 days, there were beautiful structures cleverly laid out. This time blue tiles (heaven) and green tiles (earth), with the two main areas 'floating' on a layered cloud of white marble. Trees over 600 years old. And we shared it with another 40,000 visitors. An essential part of any visit to Beijing.

Here William left us, shaving an hour off what would have been a 3 hour subway trip to his home in southern Beijing, and Mr Zhou had us back at the hotel by 4.30. A cold drink and time to blog and check work emails.

(Still Ian here) A little evening adventure ... Down to the street to watch day turn to night, the head- and street-lights take effect. See Melbourne on a billboard. Stand in the middle of the pedestrian crossing to photograph the coloured overhead lights.

And dinner. First, a little hole in the wall around the corner sells egg and pork tenderloin pancakes (think egg and bacon roll). There's a big queue, I speak no Chinese. So ... take a photo of the dish, show it to the lady, put 2 fingers in the air, she smiles at me, I pay with my phone. Yummo! By the time we were done, sitting on the stoop outside a store as streetlife passed us by, we had eaten the 2 pancakes, a grilled spiced hotdog on a stick, and 2 choc-vanilla ice creams. Total cost $5.80. (Jacqui … with a lot of help and smiles from the locals).

Goodnight little doggy. Tomorrow the Great Wall awaits!

STOP PRESS: High wind warning for tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Stay tuned. 

Steps ... 15,361

Kms ... 11.74

Photos ... 894