We started the day early (7.30am) to get to the Great Wall before the great unwashed turned up :p. It was a good thing too, by the time we left (close to 1pm), the place was becoming very touristy!
We climbed the Great Wall from Mu Tian Yu, a place about 1.5 hr drive from our hostel. We went up by cable car (more of a ski lift than a cable car really) and trekked for about 3 hours. The sky was perfect blue, the sun was shining and it was pretty awesome to be on it. You guys will have to wait for the photos on facebook though, as they are on my Nikon and I didn’t take any with my blackberry.
I lost my hat in the process, which makes me a little sad (Chris’ mum gave it to me) but guess it means I’ll have to buy one of those woolly hats with flappy ears in Ulan Batar tomorrow!
After getting back to the hostel around 3pm, we did a bit of errands - bought tickets for the Beijing - Shanghai night train on 23rd, a Beijing map, changed money to pay for hotel and tours (which took a looooonnnnnggggg time at the bank, they needed Ko Bu’s passport details among many others, and there doesn’t seem to be any independent money changers at all!), etc etc.
Once they were done, we took a walk towards Tiananmen Square - it was a little over an hour’s walk from our hostel, but it was a great walkout. We’d never have been able to do this kind of thing in Singapore weather but with the temperatures at around 6 degrees celsius, we wrapped ourselves warm and enjoyed the sunny, chilly, beautiful weather and the expansive boulevards of Beijing.
Tiananmen Square with its funky lamp posts… we saw the flag lowering ceremony after the sun went down.
Tiananmen Square is pretty impressive but the Forbidden City is immense. We didn’t have the time to do it today, so it’s on our list of must-dos when we’re back from Mongolia.
So far we found the people here to be helpful, friendly and talkative, if a bit loud and unconscious about personal space. But once they’re on the subway, it’s like Singapore x 12 in the way they don’t care about who’s coming out of the train… they just elbow their way in without batting an eyelid!
Our dinner - beansprouts with vermicelli, pork ribs and a massive bowl of hot and sour soup (not in the picture) plus rice and tea for $10…. was delish too.
Tomorrow, we head to Mongolia…. wooo hooo… I just hope it won’t be freezing cold.
