day 1
I planned to leave in the evening with China Southern Airlines to Beijing. Arriving at the airport I had to realise that the flight was overbooked and had no seat at the time of the check-in. Quite bothering news 2 hours before departure.
To cut the story short at the end I had a seat on busines class.
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| From Beijing |
After a good night's sleep I arrived at 13.05 in Beijing and took a taxi to my hotel. The ride for 40km was a 120RMB, which is about just 10EUR.
In the hotel the next surprise was already waiting for me. The hotel was overbooked as well, so I got an upgrade to an executive room on the 26th floor, with a king size bed.
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| From Beijing |
I took a shower and went to look at the Temple of Heaven, which was in the close neighbourhood just 10 minutes walk from my hotel.
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| From Beijing |
day 2
I got up early in the morning, not because of the jetleg, but because I was expecting a guest. His family name is Szajp
, not a common family name especially in China. We met once already in The Hague and since he has been working in China, we organised a "family" meeting. I asked the concierge the night beforet to hire a car with a driver for the whole day.
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| From Beijing |
We left at 9 o'clock and were heading to visit the Great Wall.
In chineese they call it the long wall, which suits much better actually. The section we visited was some 600 years old. You might know, the the wall is almost 4000km long and was built over 1000 years
The weather quite warm and humid, sorry for the grey pics.
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| From Beijing |
day 3
This day was scheduled to explore a piece of real China i.e. to walk around in a Hutong of Beijing. These districts are really authentic, where everything happens on the street actually. I really enjoyed to take photos there about the daily life of people. I had my breakfast there as well. Just to compare; I paid 6RMB in total compared to the continental breakfast at my hotel for 160RMB.
The diferences are really huge in China even within 100m.
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| From Beijing |
Early afternoon I said goodbye to Szabolcs and continued my city walk in the Olympic park. You can visit here both the Olympic Stadium and the so called cube (watersport events) as well.
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| From Beijing |
In the late afternoon I met a friend of Szabolcs's and went to one of the nightmarkets of Beijing, where I tried different delicacies such as snake, spider and crocodiles.
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| From Beijing |
day 4
As for the last day I went to visit maybe the most famous landmark of Beijing; the Tiennamen square and the Forbidden City.
Some books say the the emperors pallace has some 5000 rooms. Some others say 9999. The 9 is a lucky number in China. For example the gates have 9 times 9 knobs as well.
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| From Beijing |
The palace is quite impressive, stretching over 1,5km times 1km in the middle of the city. More than 100000 visitors average per day come here from all over the country and the world.
98% of them is Chinese!!!
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| From Beijing |
day 5
I checked out early from my luxurious hotel and took a taxi to the main railway station to catch the train to Ulann Batar.
It was not easy to find the platform, since everything was written in chineese and nobody spoke english.
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| From Mongolia |
The platform was opened only 20 minutes before departure. I counted a total of 20-25 passangers entering the whole train of 10 carrieages, which is not too many
especially taking into account that every carriage has a personal of 3. 1 conductor, 1 safety and 1 supervising them.
Time is flying on the train, travelling through breathtaking landscpapes and just writing these lines.....
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