China Says Hi: The Great Wall of China and Forbidden City in Beijing

On my latest adventures, I was able to go to Beijing! This was perhaps the first time in my life that I have felt like a genuine tourist. I was. Along with the thousands of other tourists that actually made me feel a bit more normal (like when I was wearing shorts.... apparently only Americans wear shorts when it is not freezing cold).

We started of the trip by taking an overnight train to Beijing. Quite a nice way to go. Slept through all of the traveling. We woke up the next morning in Beijing and walked to the subway so that we could make our way to the hotel that we had previously reserved.

View from our hotel in the heart of Beijing.

Our hotel was quite nice and we were pleasantly surprised that one of the workers there spoke English quite well. He ended up being a great help to us. From our hotel we could look out into the city and see the siheyuan style homes. It was a lovely place to be. Traditional China mixed in the heart of touristdom.

An alleyway that goes to our hotel.

Bugs are delicious.

There were plenty of tourists everywhere we went. Going to our hotel was quite a chore unless it was early in the morning or late at night.

Found quite a few different street artists.

Yeah,,, this was posted on the wall of the public restrooms. They probably could have used a few more signs to better prepare people before entering...

The first night we were there we just explored the area near our hotel. We found a touristy lake area and spent much of the night there. When we went, it was also the last day of the Tomb Sweeping festival (qingmingjie) and we were able to see a ceremony performed at a Taoist temple.

Before China, I had never ridden a two person bike. Still haven't. Three people!

Not really sure what to call a three person bike... Awesome?

The next day we woke up and took a taxi to the train station to go to the great wall. We missed the train by about 5 minutes so ended up going to the mall and having some ice cream while we waited for the next train. The train we took was easily the most comfortable and nice train that I have been on in China as well as the cheapest (6 rmb about $1). Not sure why it was so cheap, but I was pretty happy about that. The train ride was pleasant enough. About an hour long. The mountains reminded me a bit of Utah... it was nice to see mountains again. Also, by some anomaly of fate, the sky was this odd color that I hadn't seen for a long time. Blue. It was so weird to actually see clouds and a blue sky. Quite nice.

It was pretty cheap to get into the Great Wall.

We took the wall less traveled by.

This guy wanted me to buy his paper hat. It was actually pretty cool.

A panda ate Stefany.

This guy was making cool engravings.

There were plenty of people trying to sell different souvenirs. Haggling was expected.

Jumping shots!

Yeah.... I had a few Chinese people stop and look as we were taking these pictures. Apparently it is "weird" to jump off the Great Wall.

After we got done with the Great Wall, we went back to Beijing to check out the Bird's Nest (niao chao). It was nice to hang out at night and see all the families flying kites and enjoying the evening.

The Bird's Nest was built for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

There were a bunch a women dancing with fans in the park. This kid is not a woman, but he is pretty cute.

The next day was spent around Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City. Wow, were there ever a lot of people, and a lot of tourists. I definitely felt like a tourist, but I was happy that we were able to get around easily without paying for a tour guide or anything like that. The entire trip was relatively cheap because we found a cheap apartment and didn't have to pay for extra fees for guides.