Travelling to Beijing

Arriving in Beijing last Tuesday, the journey into the city centre gives us our first surprising taste of Beijing and China. Like the airport, the city itself is vast, spacious and sprawling. The high-rise buildings are more mid-rise than high, and the lack of any large distinct buildings makes it difficult to orientate oneself.

As predicted the traffic is horrendous but there is an elegance to the way it continues to flow – drivers weave through lanes choked with cars, bicycles, scooters, electric buses and three-wheel carts. Our driver spends the majority of his time on his mobile phone either arguing or sweet-talking his girlfriend – it’s hard to tell the difference.

The further into the city we travel the more impressed we become. The city is abundant with trees – dignified weeping willows and beautiful autumn-hued oaks.

Although only 530pm, its dark when we reach our hotel and the city lighting doesn’t reach the standards of other cities – maybe it’s an energy conservation thing? Tonight, rather than tackle a dimly lit, foreign neighbourhood we elect to use room service and find that the room-service staff cannot speak English. We solve the problem by finding the restaurant, use Google translate to select our menu choices and mime that we want it delivered. It works and we spend our first night in China full of chicken and noodles.

Day two and for practical purposes, we have booked a tour to take us to some of Beijing’s major attractions. Today we are to visit the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. For good measure (read financially lucrative) we will also have two “shopping stops”.

The Forbidden City blows us away. It’s huge, sprawling and awe-inspiring. Built in 1420 this 180-acre walled enclave in the middle of Beijing city was where Chinas former rulers – the Emperors ruled and lived with their entourage for more than 600 years. Mainly bereft of the trees found outside its huge walls, this vast, moated complex – complete with 90 palaces, nearly 10,000 rooms and slate floors is today a museum and one of Beijing’s major tourist attractions with up to 140,000 tourists visiting daily.

It takes us a slow 90 minutes to walk from front entrance to back and the entire time is spent marvelling at the size of the place, looking at all the other tourists (the majority being Chinese domestic tourists) and aiming for the best photo angle.

The Temple of Heaven – a large interesting structure where former Emperors would worship and offer prayers for good harvests is worth a look, but it doesn’t compare to the Summer Palace – a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces covering an expanse of nearly 3 square kilometres. Once the playground of those (pampered, excessive) Emperors, it’s an incredibly beautiful place.

Tomorrow we visit the Great Wall of China.

Fun facts – Chinas population 1.386 billion. China invented paper, the magnetic compass, tea, printing, silk and gunpowder. Beijing covers an area of nearly 17000 square kilometres. Its population totals nearly 25 million.