It seems you can't walk more than a few feet without spotting a barber shop in Beijing, or almost any city in China for that matter. We were warned that anyone and everyone thinks they can cut hair here. There are supposedly less than one hundred professional salons in this largely populated city. The rest are unqualified people who own scissors. Check out this advertisement we saw in a salon window. I guess it is supposed to entice people to come in for a new look? After getting a recommendation from an expat travel forum we chose a shop that looked like a quality place. It was … [Read more...]
Summer Palace, A Pleasant Escape In Beijing
The Summer Palace was a second residence for the emperor of China, it was used to escape the summer heat of the city. The location is just fifteen kilometers from central Beijing making it easily accessible by local bus. Unlike the barren flat grounds of the Forbidden City, this site is full of trees and greenery. The palace stopped being used as an Imperial Garden in 1924 and was turned into a public park. The nearly three square kilometer area is situated around Kunming Lake and dominated by the sixty meter high Longevity Hill. The top of the hill offers impressive views of the lake and … [Read more...]
Traveling As A Vegetarian In China
It was challenging to travel around for three months in China as vegetarians. We do eat fish, but that didn't seem to make it any easier. We're not complaining, but just giving our experience. The last thing we want to be are travelers that whine about not being able to get the same food as home while in a foreign country. Food is one of the main reasons we love to travel, we try to sample as many local dishes as we can. Generally we are only slightly limited because of being vegetarians. However we found China to be quite different from anywhere else we have traveled. Even hardcore meat … [Read more...]
Simatai Wall, Less Smog, Barely Any People
This would be our second section of the wall that we have gone to. Simatai is located 120 km's northeast of Beijing. We were told the visibility should be a lot better here than Badaling. This section being a lot further away from Beijing and with less transportation options is much less visited than Badaling. It ended up being a bit of a mess to get there. We decided to save money and do the wall at our leisure by taking local transport instead of a prearranged trip. We went to the bus station and asked which bus would take us to Simatai. We loaded onto the bus and after about 2 hours into … [Read more...]
Secret Wall Section Turns Into Crazy Hiking Adventure
We decided to see a third section of the Great Wall. We did this through a place called Leo's Hostel that offers something called the Secret Wall Tour. There are a few outfits that do the same sort of tour. They take you to an unrestored area of the wall that is not part of any of the main tourist sections. This part of the wall was 3 hours away from Beijing past the Badaling Great Wall. We certainly got something different than what we signed up for. We were told you had to be fit to do this tour, that was an under statement. The walking of this part of the wall was supposed to be about 3 … [Read more...]
Forbidden City
A Bit Of Information About The Forbidden City The Forbidden city is located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing. To the south of the Imperial Palace grounds is the Tienamen Square. Access to the Forbidden City is through the square via the Tienamen Gate. Today Tienamen Gate is decorated with a giant picture of Mao Zedong or Chairman Mao as he is known. It was the imperial palace for 14 emperors during the mid-Ming and the Qing Dynasties. The extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters or 178 acres. There are 800 buildings and more than 8,000 rooms. It is listed by UNESCO … [Read more...]
Badaling Great Wall, Lot’s Of Smog, Lots Of People
A Bit Of Great Wall History The Great Wall is one of the largest building projects ever completed in the history of man. It is even visible from space. It is constructed of masonry rocks and packed earth. Every possible material available at the time was used from mud and reeds to the finest mortar bricks ever made. Much of it still remains intact centuries later. Like a snake like dragon the Great Wall winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, and mountains. It stretches approximately 6,700 kilometers from east to west of China and crossing five provinces. The history of the Great … [Read more...]
Arriving In Beijing, Our Stay In The Hutong
Landing In The Smog As we were starting our descent to land at Beijing airport I looked out the window. We were descending down through clouds, or so we thought. We waited as we kept going down and looked forward to when we would break through and get to see the first glimpse of the city below. It didn't seem to be happening. We just kept going down and down in the clouds. When we could finally see we were shocked, we were almost on the ground. It seemed as though we were about to have our worst experience yet with pollution in China. Modern Beijing Is Squeezing Out The Old At A Rapid … [Read more...]
More Beijing Temples And Attractions
Temple Of Heaven The Temple of Heaven is the most holy of Beijing Imperial temples. The emperor came here in the winter to pray to heaven for a good harvest. The Chinese believed this location was the exact center of the universe. The entire area was designed to represent the relationship between heaven and earth. We enjoyed the actual grounds and surrounding areas of pine treed woods in the park. They were very pleasant to stroll through. The circular Temple of Prayer building is quite stunning. A lot of the other buildings are repetitive of ones in the Forbidden City but are on a smaller … [Read more...]