All the bells and whistles

As the rider rode in the shadow of the Great Wall, enlightenment sparked within… don’t get on a horse with a backpack on.  Fail.

Beijing. Capital city. Emperors’ playground turned peoples’ metropolis embracing the modern world one honking car at a time. Now it’s my turn.

So most of you know this place (I’d be surprised to find someone who doesn’t), last place to host the Olympics before London, and many recall the incredible spectacle they put on. So 4 years later the legacy remains the famous Bird’s nest stadium, just a quirky in real life and certainly different from the surrounding architecture of uniform high rises and traditional temples. The Olympic Park is still immaculacy maintained and an early morning past exercising locals stretching on the side walk and up to the top hill gives a view down the ‘Central Line’ into the belly of the heaving city.

This Central Line runs directly through the city to the mountains and is of particular importance as it is believed to bring good fate (which is heritable aka you can pass it on to your offspring). It is no coincidence that the Forbidden City and other key buildings sit directly upon this line. We got our first sight of the Emperors’ digs from Jingshan Park (infamous site of suicide of one of its previous owners) and I didn’t expect it to be so BIG! As in the buildings were huge, the complex is expected to be large if it contained the whole household of the Emperor e.g. wives, concubines, consorts, eunuchs, maidservants etc. Obviously this place was tourist central but we were one step ahead of the game and were taken around by a local family friend. Win.

From the living quarters to the final rest, the Ming Tombs one of several sites where the Emperors were laid to rest (this one being unearthed, the rest remain underground). This place also scores ‘fate points’ as it is located near mountains and water (one point each), hence the choice of burial site. Another cool place though the chambers were littered quite literally with money notes from visitors (I assume to obtain some fate points?) but as a 1yuan note = £0.10/$0.15 I guess the piles of cash were of little value.

The real playground of the Emperors’ had to be the Summer Palace. An exquisite lake surrounded by Buddhist temples, high arching bridge and traditional halls and courtyards surrounded by a backdrop of misty blue hills. This was certainly my favourite choice of royal dwelling in Beijing. As one soaked up the tranquillity that hung in the sun-kissed September morning, heightened by the occasional talented pipe playing local… there was fun to be had. Firstly these tourist places are also choice meeting sites for women to do their morning group exercise sessions done to a simple melodic music, naturally I couldn’t stop myself from joining the end of the line and dancing along. As if that wasn’t enough, we came across another group of individuals practicing ‘ soft slow ball’ which essentially is balancing a ball upon a plastic sheeted racket whilst doing hand/body manoeuvres (individually or in a pair)… harder than it looks but we gave it a bash.

I should say that ‘we’ refers to me and my travel comrade Tanya, who flew over from England to meet up at Beijing Airport. It goes that one should pick their friends wisely and this is even more so true for a travel companion. I believe I picked well on both accounts as Tanya is a machine at organisation, which is useful as the past 8 months has been a gradual English Efficiency decommissioning since I arrived in Australia. Not that I mind (I’ve totally embraced the Ozzie laid back approach to life).

Anyway back to all things Chinese. And to the thing that is essentially what everyone labels as China… The Great Wall. Seeing it snake its way across the mountains like a mythical dragon guarding the skies is in itself incredible! Walking it though is a Mission as the gradient of the steps makes one wonder if one should have brought climbing gear, but certainly worth the struggle for the great views across the landscape. We actually went to the wall twice, being so much of it, we visited 2 areas, the second less touristy and much more of an adventure. It started with a 2 hour drive from the city and we ended up in a village with no obvious route up the hill. Enter men with horses and suddenly we were trekking pathway through the forest, up the hill to the wall. At this point I should point out that I am not a keen animal person and my previous horse riding is limited to 1 trip round a field with someone else holding the reigns… now you see me upon a rather large horse with as much protection as my aviators will give me… so only from the sun, learning to balance as the horse picks his (or her) way through the rocky path and later break into a full gallop. Oh England and your health and safety, you would have fainted right away… I on the other hand loved it!!!! :D

So that’s a few stories thus far. Next blog maybe I’ll talk about how my stomach has been won over by the local food, which is eating away my originally British taste-buds one mouthful at a time. Om nom nom.