Hey, everyone! Sorry for not being able to post more lately.. I'm starting to pay for my week-long absence from work. Piles of papers on my desktop!! I've been tempted many times to just put everything in the trash bin and start with a clean slate. Ha! Wonder what my boss would say..
Our trip to Beijing definitely refreshed all of us! We didn't enjoy following our tour guide very much though. Although we loved the conveniences of just following her around and having a private car to take us places, keeping up with the tour guide's pace definitely didn't suit our tastes.
Take for example
The Forbidden City. .
Isn't the place wonderful? The beautiful place has so much history that it would probably take a whole day to explore it and learn about the emperors and empresses who lived in it (and the emperors' concubines of course). Because we had a tour guide to follow and keep up with, we breezed through the place and were done in an hour. Yep, an hour.
I learned some interesting facts though. Did you know that the whole Forbidden City only housed one man (the emperor, of course) at any one time? The rest are girls and the emperor can choose to sleep with any of them. It's like thousands of girls belonged to one emperor. If at some point you were lucky (or unlucky?) to be chosen as the emperor's partner, even if it was just for one, single night and even if you never wanted to be, you are no longer allowed to step out of the Forbidden City for the rest of your life. If you weren't, you have the option to leave the place after 10 years.
Language Barrier
I guess the most difficult thing we had to deal with during our trip had to be the language barrier. It really surprised us when we realized that only one staff in our hotel spoke and understood English! We had to wait for her shift to start before we could start asking how to go around or where to buy prepaid credits for our phones so we can call home and other stuff. Ding was genuinely nice and helpful though and she managed to answer all of our questions. And if we needed to ask someone while we were exploring the city, we looked for young locals, those who looked like they're still in school, and we were sure to be understood.
Tour Highlights
As expected, one of the highlights of the trip was conquering the Great Wall of China amidst short breaths, buckets of sweat and aching limbs. That has got to be the hardest climb I've made,
ever. And I didn't even get very far! Haha!
Most of the trip was spent walking (lots and lots of that!), climbing and enduring long periods of time under the scorching heat of the sun. So you can imagine our delight when, during the 4th day, we visited Beihai Park, the largest and most preserved imperial park in Beijing. It was sooooo beautiful and peaceful I wanted to take the whole park home with me and hide it in my backyard!
And of course, who would forget about these adorable, furry, black-and-white babies? We went to see super cute pandas at the Beijing Zoo!
No, he's not dead. He simply decided he didn't want
to face and entertain us so he gave us a good view
of his cute panda butt instead. :)
And here's a photo of us in rickshaws, getting ready to explore the old alleys of Beijing and see how the locals live their everyday lives..
So I guess that's that! I have so many stories and pictures but they would probably bore you to death so let's just limit it to the highlights. :) I wouldn't want to kill anybody out of boredom..
We all loved the whole trip and are already looking forward to our next adventure together. But probably not too soon since we've used up almost all of our savings. lol It was well worth it anyway..
And since I'm still in Beijing spirit, let me leave you with a link to a
FREE downloadable Asian-themed scrapbook paper that you can print and use as many times as you'd like. Feel free to browse through the site since it also has other pretty freebies. :)
Hmm.. I can already see myself cutting the lanterns out and sticking them to a card using foam tape!
Have a great day!!
