This trip is getting ever closer and fortunately things have quietened down a bit for me. So I have had time for some preparations and also to post an update.
Beijing
Of all the places that we will be visiting on our upcoming trip, Beijing has got the biggest pull on me. I cannot wait to finally get to see this for myself. We arrive late in the evening on 1st December. Our hotel is only about 20 minutes from the airport and taxis seem to be very cheap in China. However, as Chinese taxi drivers don’t normally speak English and I am not sure how alert we will be after travelling for about 18 hours, we have decided to play it safe and booked transfers. We also have quite an early start on the day we fly to Tokyo so this just made the most sense.
We will have two full days in Beijing. The next morning we will have an early start. I am going to get to tick another thing off my bucket list. We have booked a private tour to the Great Wall of China. We originally looked a group tours, but then I found that one of the suppliers that we use at work was offering a private tour that was not a great deal more expensive. So we went with this. The most popular section of the Great Wall of China is Badaling and this is where most of the tours go. I had originally look at this, but Graham has a Chinese business associate and she advised us to avoid Badaling at all cost. Apparently it is always very crowded and in her words, it is the Chinese version of
Disneyland. Apparently it is overly commercialized and not very authentic. She recommended Mutianyu, which tends to be somewhat quieter. From what I read, the surrounding scenery is not quite as stunning, but it is meant to be one of the best preserved stretches of the Great Wall of China and it is famous for the high density of watch towers. As this is more authentic, access is more difficult with 1400 uneven steps leading up to the wall, but we will probably take the easy way and take the cable car in both directions. During the summer months, you can take a toboggan run down, but I suppose this would be too dangerous in winter. It is actually snowing there today. The advance weather forecast looks OK for when we are there. It is meant to be sunny with cloudy intervals with no snow forecast. It is snowing there today though. I have decided to play it safe and ordered some non-slip hiking shoes.
The advantage of the early start and the fact that we are heading straight there is that we should hopefully beat the tour buses to it. A lot of them are going elsewhere first so hopefully by the time they get there, we will be nearly ready to leave. As part of the tour, we will get lunch and we will also visit a cloisonné factory. We should be back at the hotel by mid afternoon and we may or may not go out again exploring depending on how tired we are.
The next day, we are going to take to the subway. We had originally contemplated a tour for that day, too, but have decided that we would prefer the freedom to linger as long as we want. The first stop will be Tiananmen Square. From everything I read about this, it sounds really impressive. I expect we will just pass through taking photos on the way.
The highlight that day will definitely be the Forbidden City. I have heard that you can spend all day there and still not see everything. This is the main reason why we have decided to do this by ourselves as this gives us the freedom to spend as much time there as we want.
I hope we will have time to visit the Temple of Heaven complex. I really want to see the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, which was recreated at the Chinese pavilion at Epcot and the Imperial Vault of Heaven. The complex is meant to have stunning gardens, but we are there at the wrong time of year so hopefully this will only take about an hour. Depending on how early we get back the previous day, we may try to fit it in then.
