Arriving in Beijing, things were noticably different. It won't make sense unless you have been to Shanghai and taken a Shanghai taxi. It is pretty scary, but somehow they manage to not wreck all the time. In fact, I have seen only probably 2 minor wrecks since we moved here. They fly down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic, even using the shoulder as a passing lane. (We are getting so used to it, that when we have the occassional driver who doesn't, we are irritated by his slow driving!) Beijing taxis go with the flow of traffic, use blinkers, and don't gas it only to hit the break two seconds later. But I did see as many accidents in Beijing as I have seen in 6 months in Shanghai, and ones that looked much worse. We made it to the hotel and checked in and then were off to Tianamen's Square.
Beijing is quite far north, but somehow we picked a nice weekend that was cold with no wind....so we could stay warm. Tianamen's Square has a flag ceremony in the am and pm where thousands of tourists, mostly Chinese, gather around to watch the soldiers raise or lower the flag. Definitely interesting, but my kids became the tourist attraction and instead of watching the ceremony people were taking pics of the girls. Another noticable and extremely annoying difference was the amount of people selling things and they wouldn't go away! In Shanghai, you will have a few people come up to you to see if you would like a "watch, bag, DVD", but they go away and don't hound you. Every place in Beijing has people selling junk that hound you, especially as a foreigner.
The ceremony ended and we were off to find dinner and get inside once the sun went down. We found a fun mall just a few blocks from the hotel that had some decent places to eat. We finished dinner and bought a few things from the grocery store for the next day. We went to bed early so we could venture out early the next morning.
After a hearty western breakfast buffet, we went to Forbidden city. This place was built for emperors that covers acres and is just enormous. You can get easily lost! A tour guide struck up a conversation with my dad and we had a tour guide for the day. He was quite informative and spoke English quite well. I missed out on most of the conversation as my two small friends didn't allow anyone to hear if we were that close to him. The thing I do know about Beijing is that it is not kid friendly. (The ground isn't smooth, their are very few ramps for the millions of stairs, and they have this thing about keeping the evil spirits from entering through the door, so all most doors have a 12 inch tall blocker that you must lift a stroller over.) Thankfully for the good helpers, we were able to lug 2 strollers and 2 kids all over. But by mid afternoon, Corde and I grabbed a taxi to head back to the hotel for naps. The rest finished up the tour and Dad made a deal with the tour guide for the next day as we headed to some tombs and to the Great Wall. He even arranged to have a 14 passenger van hired for the day to take us from place to place. The Great Wall is about 1 1/2 hours from the city.
The tour guide - You must know his English name, Bill Gore, he told us he really liked Bill Clinton and apparently Al Gore. Just sounds funny to us!The next morning we loaded up and we were off. This day we were sure to pack gloves and hats for the wind on the Great Wall. It was an amazing site, but once again not a kid friendly place. The walk way on the wall isn't smooth and the one stroller Corde thankfully managed to make it up a little ways. But once we arrived at the stairs, my afraid of heights mom, the girls, and I waited for the others at the bottom while they hiked up. It was freaking cold up their, but the hiking with the sun made you sweat. It doesn't look that steep....very deceiving. We stopped at some tombs and lugged some more strollers and kids around. Then the driver drove us around Beijing and passed the main site of the Olympics. It will a hopping place this summer, we look forward to catching them on TV!
But after two days of going and going, this mom and her kids were exhausted. We left the others to head back to the hotel for a good nap and stayed in the rest of the evening, other than to grab a bite at McDonalds! My parents enjoyed some Peking Duck, which they loved, while the "kids" opted for the Sizzler! The McDonalds was about 3 blocks from the hotel, if you took the shortcut through the scary alley. Funny thing about this is that here we were in a city of 15 million people and I don't hardly think twice about taking my kids through a dark alley! NEVER would I do that in most American cities, big or small!
We still had one whole more day of touring ahead of us with a flight leaving Beijing at 10pm the next night. I didn't think I could handle it and I know my kids were exhausted. Neither were sleeping very well as Adayla kept us up with her hacking Shanghai cough. So we were able to change our tickets to an earlier flight in the morning and left the family to enjoy a day with out carrying and pushing strollers all day. They hit up the zoo and made it to a little market to buy some more junk, I mean goodies to take home with them! ; ) I was glad we came home when we did, the girls did okay on the flight, and Tally finally feel asleep as we came into land....buster! But we made it home in time for her to take a much need 3 hour nap and be well rested for our last day with our visitors.
So here is my summary of Beijing....my family were more than helpful with the kids and didn't complain for all the extra work we created. My kids were great and were quite content, they just are heavy! (Adayla is capable of walking quite a bit, but she just isn't that fast!) I am extremely glad Tim and I didn't attempt Beijing by ourselves, but it is not a place for small kids that need to be in strollers. I was completely worn out after two days and I will not be going back anytime soon. I love my kids and will gladly take them anywhere (we have attempted many strange places with them), but Beijing was more than I could handle! We leave in a week for a 3 week jaunt to the south, good thing we will be sitting on the beach for some of it!
1 comment:
That's great your family came to visit. It's always sad to see them go, but at least you have Josie staying with you. Beijing looks beautiful. I would love to see the great wall of China someday.
Post a Comment