23 May 2018 Beijing China – Hong Kong. “Once upon a time ……..”

We were already awake for our 6:30am wake-up call. Bags out by 7:30, on the bus to the airport at 8am. Breakfast was in there somewhere.

An easy drive mostly in the opposite direction to Beijing’s peak hour traffic got us to the airport around 8:45. We were met by our Tour Manager/Guide Melinda. She made sure we all got through the first of 3 layers of security, and it was also handy for her to get her tips.

All went well until we went through check-in, first our carry on was too heavy, 6kg over (no one else had theirs checked). So we put it through as checked in luggage, only to have it kicked out for a manual security check. Once we took Deb’s  camera and spare battery out we were good to go. They REALLY don’t like batteries or power packs here!

We got through, bought some duty free and then tried to use up our leftover RMB, without success, looks like the Qantas Change for Good will be the beneficiaries of it.

We had about a 2.5hr wait for our midday flight to leave.

Sooooooo, “22 May 2018 Beijing, Once upon a time, …….”
As we left the hotel to get on our bus there was a street vendor waiting for our group, he had tracked us from yesterday to our hotel and was out the front everytime we arrived at or left our hotel. We aren’t sure how he knew where we were staying. The americans on our tour are making him a wealthy man. Lol.

When we got off the bus we had a rare glimpse of Beijing blue skies, many in our group took photos  just to prove it happened!

The Summer Palace is huge in area. With many buildings for different purposes surrounding a huge lake that has many islands in it. Due to the seasonal heavy rains in Beijing, many of the buildings are joined with long covered walkways, all of them have very colourful frescoes painted on their ceilings. We walked along one that was over 500m long.

There were lots of people out at the Palace, including many school groups. Westerners are still a curiosity here in China, and the locals often surreptitiously try to get their photo taken with the “whities”. The brave ones will ask for a selfie with them. It’s lots of fun, a great way to have an interaction with the locals and lots of laughs. I was asked by a school kid to fill out a survey for him on my impressions of the Summer Palace, and then we had a brief conversation. They love practicing their English.

We got to a boat wharf to get a ferry/boat across to an island. We were very lucky, and got the last ferry due to increasing winds making the waters dangerous. The ferry took us out to an Island that had a temple and exhibition space. The exhibition on at the moment was on “The Evil Empress”, and the court servants, you know, your normal spread of concubines, eunuchs, etc. Interesting.

From there we left the Palace and were taken to a Pearl Factory/Display/Shop. Not a Chinese national in sight as a customer. We were given the obligatory information talk about “insert product name here” and how good and genuine theirs were, and how to spot a fake. And then they told us that we were such special guests to their establishment that we would be given a very special discount of 30% off the tagged prices on all goods. It made us feel so warm and fuzzy.  We couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

From there it was lunch. All our lunches while out are banquet style with an obscene amount of food served up to us, often approaching 10 separate dishes. There is always lots left over, such a waste.

While the day was windy, it meant blue skies and a very warm day, generally a good day for touristing.

From lunch we were taken to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City.  Both areas are vast, no other word really describes them. We were told by our guide that we are visiting this area in the afternoon as the mornings are very crowded with nationals attending the daily flag raising ceremony.
Unfortunately besides missing the flag ceremony, this also meant for Tiananmen Square that we missed the opportunity to visit Mao’s mausoleum. Where he is apparently lying in state in a crystal sarcophagus.

Mao’s mausoleum is flanked by 2 large sculptures depicting the struggle and valour of the people. In the middle of Tiananmen Square there is a monument to the Hero’s of China. It is said that this square can accomodate around 1 million people, it is so hard to imagine that number of people, but if any square would be capable of that, this was it.

Once we finished in the Square we took an under pass beneath Donghaumen Road Road to get over to the Forbidden City.

This road was designed in the time of the cold war under Mao’s direction to act as an emergency runway, very clever. It could still be used for that purpose today with very little work required to clear the road.

The Forbidden City is huge. It was designed, added to and modified by 24 Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to suit their needs and paranoia from 1407. Seems being Emperor in China wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of a long life.

The Forbidden City is around 1km long and maybe 750m wide and was originally surrounded by high walls and a moat. It is called the “Forbidden City” because unless you were of a certain socio-political status, or there on business, everyone was forbidden to enter it. It is broken into 5 sections,  the outer court, and an inner court both with several different Halls (Supreme Harmony, Central Harmony, Preserving Harmony, Brilliance and Martial Valour, as well as Palaces of Heavenly Purity, Earthly Tranquility and more, much much more) finishing with the Emperor’s garden.

That brings me to the Gardens of the various Dynasties of China. They like rocks! Not your ordinary rocks mind you, but large rocks with many holes “sculpted into them, and trees, particularly pine type trees. None of the common colourful flowers gardens for these aristocrats. Must be an aquired taste, or a cultural thing.

We exited the “City” through the gate at the Garden end. The moat there is around 25m wide, a couple of locals were taking advantage of the waters and were fishing in the moat!

While we were inside the City we sat down and a family with 2 children asked to have photos with us. The kids were very hesitant at first, but soon warmed to us. We had lots of laughs and photos with the family, the kids, their mum, grandmother and friends. So much fun.

Dinner this night was our farwell dinner, featuring Peking Duck, so much Peking Duck, almost a plate of duck per person, and that was our apetiser/entre. The waiter at each table made everyone their first serve, showing us the correct order of construction. This was followed by about 10 more dishes! Tonight being special meant we also got unlimited Great Wall wines (red & white), beer, softdrinks and water. There was also a small jug of sorghum spirit on each table, as well as a prepoured small shot glass at every seat. This spirit was of low proof to most of this kind, only 46% alcohol, they can be as high as 80+%!! Me and my mate Vish (a really nice guy from Wisconsin) made a good effort on the spirit and shared a bowl of chilli to spice up the meal.

The meal finished with Vince, from Jersey, giving a really good, funny speech thanking our tour
leader. After the meal we were ready to go back and relax at our hotel, but instead were taken on a 45 minute city lights tour featuring Tiananmen Square that we had seen with a few others the night before.

Another day was over and it was around 11:30pm before our lights went out.

………. “and we lived happily ever after”

Back to our flight, Beijing to Hong Kong on Hong Kong Airlines. Not a bad airline but the seats are hard! Flight time was a bit over 3 hrs, disturbed by only the occasional turbulance. This would generally have been fine, but the seats were like ditting on a hard wooden bench! And no cushions in sight. We landed pretty well on time and got through imigration fairly quickly. Things came to a halt at the baggage carousel,  it took over 30mins for our baggage to appear.

Once we got it we got through customs like a breeze and found the Gate 1 guide waiting for us. Our coach is pretty new and has leather seats, it is built for 49, and since there are only 24 of us it will be spacious comfortable rides.

Our guide, Daniel is around 50 and seems very knowledgeable. After a welcome drink and checking in, we set out for a walk around and through the local street markets.  All the hussle and bustle of an asian street market. We couldn’t find anything to eat around the market, so we walked back to the hotel and got something to eat at a small local noodle cafe, nice clean fresh food.

So there you have it Ben, and everyone really did live happily ever after.

More adventures tomorrow folks

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