Beijing-2 nights
Upon arrival at the hotel from the train station, we rested for the entire morning. (very nice hotel for a Chinese hotel, I must say) We at lunch at the
Duyichu Dumpling Restaurant. That's just one of my friends and me. The Coke bottle had...an advertisement for
HK Disneyland's Tomorrowland...and the Sprite bottle advertised HK Disneyland's
Adventureland. In the afternoon, we walked through underground tunnels to get across the street to
Tiananmen Square. k well, I'm standing
in Tiananmen Square with the Gate of Heavenly Peace behind me. And here's an
upclose on the gate of heavenly peace with the guarding lion and Chairman Mao.
I thought we were gonna be going to the Temple of Heaven that day, but it turns out...we never went. So I was kinda frustrated by that because I wanted to see it...but sorta glad because we didn't have to give our presentation about it.
Past the Gate of Heavenly Peace, we entered the Forbidden City, where they had a
STARBUCKS But having already broken my oath of not taking a sip of coffee in Shanghai (my teacher gave me the rest of his black coffee from Starbucks at the Yu Garden), I got a Mango Citrus ^_^. We all thought we were gonna die in the Forbidden City because the place was absolutely massive, along with the 2:00pm sun above our heads. But that's alright. Here's
me with the longest stone carving ever. And we went clubbing after having dinner at the
Famous Peking Duck Restaurant. haha great fun, except there were 3 shady guys scheming something that had to do with us.
We spent a day at
The world-renowned Great Wall of China at
Mutinyu. We climbed up to highest fortress which has a spectacular view of the neverending wall. And
this is just me chillin' at a window in the fortress. And I wrote my
name on the wall of that window.
well, the native Chinese did it too...
More and
more of the Great Wall. Afterwards, we went tobagganing down from the Great Wall. woo that was fun. It was fun hiking up. some steps were narrow, some were wide. Some were high, and...some were twisted! In the evening, we attended a popular
Peking Opera in the lobby of our hotel.
We also visited Empress Dowager Cixi's
Summer Palace. We went paddleboating and just walked all over the place. We crossed the
Seventeen-Arch Bridge...and it was a nice
photo-op. The
Marble Boat...
again, Lauren and me..in front of a Buddhist Temple in the palace. There was another
temple that was quite interesting...mainly on the exterior. The entire building was carved with thousands of little Buddha statues, but during a revolution (cultural..? I'm guessing? I dunno, I'm not really into history right now), the...Russians(?) carved out many of the heads of the Buddha...probably to put a halt to the practice of Buddhism. I dunno.
Lotus flower...took a visit to the Silk Alley where the sellers are insane and constantly try to guiltrip you...just like sellers you see on the streets.
Then we took a flight to Chengdu, from where we took a four-hour bus ride to Wolong, China's largest nature reserve for PANDAS!