So I didn’t have a dedicated entry for Hoi An and Hanoi because I don’t think they merited their own entry. Hoi An was basically all about the tailored suits and Hanoi was walking around experiencing the town and seeing Ha Long Bay. Hanoi was also very similar to Saigon.

Now onto Beijing. 

When we were landing I was quite frightened. The Pollution was extremely bad. it was a 433 out of 500 on the Air Pollution Index. It was really foggy and since it was so polluted the fog was this ugly brown color. This made it seem as though the fog was just a coat of thick smog. Luckily it rained that night which cleared the air up for 2 days.

Beijing has the most things to do out of all of the cities we have been to. So far we have gone to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Mao Zedong’s embalmed corpse, The Temple of Heaven, Prospect Hill, and the Jiankou section of the Great Wall. Probably the only food worth noting is the Peking Duck, which although overpriced was very good. We opted for the better rated duck place over the original duck place. We ate at this place called Da Dong Roast Duck it was good but 198 Yuan was quite a bit for the small amount of food we got.

Those pieces to the right are the neck and head of the duck. If you eat here I do not suggest eating the head. The eye is very bitter and so was the chunk of brains that I tried. If you are into that kind of stuff then go for it. If extremely bitter is not your thing steer clear.

The Forbidden city was absolutely amazing, although how they had enough time and money to build it I’ll never know.

Although all of the buildings started to look the same after a while, I was amazed at the size of the place. Unfortunately in the picture above the pollution is pretty bad so you can’t really tell. I took the picture from Prospect Hill, which on a clear day would have provided an amazing view of the Forbidden City, but since it was not a clear day that image is what I got.

When we actually visited the Forbidden City it was an extremely clear day. So I was able to take pictures with a nice blue sky.

  

 

  

I really wish that we had been able to go to prospect hill on the same day as the forbidden temple but it was just impossible. Expect to devote one or more days to the Forbidden Temple we were only there for 4 or 5 hours which was nowhere near enough time.

The Temple of Heaven was not all that great. It was just a cool looking building. I think there was something special about how the interior is designed but there was a huge crowd trying to see the inside of the building so I had no chance to look in.

 

The grounds of the temple of heaven were nice as well. But as with the Forbidden Temple there were far too many tourists. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if we had gone on a weekend. After the Temple of Heaven we went to the Da Dong Roast Duck restaurant I mentioned earlier.

Perhaps my favorite part of the trip was the great wall. We opted to go to a less touristy and mostly un-renovated section of the great wall, the Jiankou section of the great wall. This section of the great wall has pretty much become a part of the landscape with sections of it being completely gone and other parts completely overgrown with foliage. It was good to get out of the city because by this time the pollution was getting pretty bad again, and it was also good to get away from the crowds of tourists for a while. But we definitely had to earn it. There were times when some rock climbing was required. It was a little worrisome that there were no safety harnesses but whatever we all made it back safely. I’m not sure but I don’t think the section of the wall that we visited was open to the public, but the driver did not care. We paid 20 RMB to get into some Zoology park where we weren’t supposed to go to the great wall and then we went to the great wall.

 

This section of the wall really was wild and wonderful. Unlike Badaling which is fully restored and extremely touristy.

Getting to Jiankou was much easier than I thought it would be. We took a taxi from Beijing, Dongcheng district, to Huairou (153 RMB), then as soon as we got off in Hauirou this guy with a van stopped right in front of us and asked us where we were going. After Crystal told him we wanted to go to Jiankou he said he’d take us. We offered him 300 RMB for the day and we were on our way. On the way back we took the 916 bus.

After Jiankou we ate at some restaurant near the Bus stop. And I got food poisoning! after more than a little barfing and a wasted day in Beijing I am fine again, I think. Tomorrow, our last day in Beijing we will be going to the Summer Palace and one of the Olympic Stadiums.