The Elusive Beijing

Finally, I can tick Beijing off my List. I was beginning to think I'd never make it after several failed attempts (in the form of cancelled trips) but with just 2 months left on the Asia Clock, I did it. Alan of course has been here many times, but much to my delight was working hard every single time and hadn't seen ANY sights yet, so that gave me permission to organise a couple of tours in which we were escorted around our chosen sights of Beijing...ensuring we didn't waste our valuable 2 days in this fascinating city. We don't usually do the Tour thing, we go it alone and make our own way...we're a bit slow...we both enjoy photography and like to go at our own pace but on this occasion there was simply too much to see and too little time, and then there's also the language thing, so we needed some help and if the photography suffered for that, well then, so be it.

Our first stop was the Great Wall. But I've covered that already...and as it happens I think we did go just a little too slowly for our guide but thankfully she was professional and very accommodating and just smiled sweetly...and kept walking, in the hope that we'd just follow I imagine.

On our second day we did a whistle-stop tour of some amazing sights: The Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, Tian'anmen Square and Summer Palace. It was quite a full day with a lot of walking and I was very glad I dressed my feet for comfort rather than style.

The Forbidden City was HUGE. It was the Chinese Imperial Palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty and is right in the centre of the city. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

I'm getting used to the style now... in the beginning it felt so unique and so different to anything I'd seen before but I've seen a lot of temples now... and there are similarities. Bit like churches I guess. However, what was noticeably different from many of the temples I've seen around Hong Kong, was the amount of space here. Vast open areas and courtyards. Huge temples to accommodate huge numbers of people. So vast that I really didn't have a lens on my camera to really do it justice!

Taken at The Forbidden City...couldn't do the place justice, so I went for detail instead.

Probably one of the most well known and the largest city square in the world; Tian'anmen Square, named after Tian'anmen Gate which means Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is the gateway to the Forbidden City.

The Temple of Heaven. For me this was a unique temple, with no roof, so that people could pray directly to the heavens, apparently for good weather...or whatever kind of weather it was they needed....

And the Temple of Heaven where they prayed for a good harvest.

Some Temple of Heaven detail.....

And finally...an old fashioned tea house in the guise of a marble boat at Summer Palace. Sounds ideal to me...my kind of boat...just somewhere to sit and sip your afternoon tea and admire the views over Kunming lake. Nice.