Despite
the early morning wake up call, we were lucky enough to be greeted with another
wonderful, sunny day!
Our itinerary looked a little something like this:
7 – 9AM – Wake up/breakfast at hotel
9 – 10:45AM – Drive to the Great Wall
11 – 12:30PM – Sightseeing at the Great Wall of China
2PM – 4PM – Touring the Forbidden City
4PM – 5PM – Public transport back to the hotel to freshen up
6:30PM onwards – Dinner with Steve’s Aunty and family.
Us on the cable car
Great Wall
Selfie on the Great Wall
I will totally take advantage of being the author of this blog by glossing over the hilarious, loser-like details of my stacking it on the great wall. How iconic of me. Let’s just say I was lucky because there was nobody around to see and Steven had his back to me. I will also admit that there was no other reason for me to stack it except for my own awkward feet, haha! Just when I thought it was okay to relax because we were heading back to the cable cars to go down, the ground decides that it wants to kiss my hands and knees. Anyway, moving on!
The Forbidden City was amazing to see. I’m so glad we paid the 8 yuan (Chinese currency) for the audio tour that narrated our walkthrough perfectly as it could tell our location via GPS. The place was swarming with tourists though and there were surprisingly a LOT of Chinese tour groups. Steve mentioned that they probably had never been to Beijing before and may have come from other provinces. I wish I could properly remember all the names of the walls and the gates and the descriptions of the Outer Court and the Inner Court but I would probably just butcher it if I tried to describe it here. But if ever any of you are thinking of heading to Beijing and seeing this place, the audio tour is a MUST. The history of this place is just brimming with so much symbolism and meaning and there was nothing boring about knowing what each place was used for and what happened there.
I am not ashamed to own up to the fact though, that as the audio tour spoke about this place being the imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, I probably had stars in my eyes because all that was running through the back of my mind was…MULAN!!! *And fan girl’d the whoooole way through without fail*
Steve was unfortunately subjected to crazy fan girl whisperings which sounded a little something like, that is where she set off all the fireworks! And she totally flying foxed across those roof tops, and oh my gosh! THIS IS WHERE SHE MET THE EMPEROR!!! - *hearts in eyes, hearts in eyes, hearts in eyes*.
Annnd this is why I fail at maturity. Now, oh, look! Here are some photos!
Wall of tourists
Unfortunately, I have no photos from when we had dinner with Steve’s Auntie’s family, but she took us to this awesome place that served some great tasting Peking Duck and some other yummy Chinese food which I have no names for because I was too busy stuffing my face.
In conclusion though, here is the only photo I had from the dinner, and some close ups of the pretty little details we saw from the Forbidden City.
Dinner
Our itinerary looked a little something like this:
7 – 9AM – Wake up/breakfast at hotel
9 – 10:45AM – Drive to the Great Wall
11 – 12:30PM – Sightseeing at the Great Wall of China
2PM – 4PM – Touring the Forbidden City
4PM – 5PM – Public transport back to the hotel to freshen up
6:30PM onwards – Dinner with Steve’s Aunty and family.
Us on the cable car
Great Wall
Selfie on the Great Wall
I will totally take advantage of being the author of this blog by glossing over the hilarious, loser-like details of my stacking it on the great wall. How iconic of me. Let’s just say I was lucky because there was nobody around to see and Steven had his back to me. I will also admit that there was no other reason for me to stack it except for my own awkward feet, haha! Just when I thought it was okay to relax because we were heading back to the cable cars to go down, the ground decides that it wants to kiss my hands and knees. Anyway, moving on!
The Forbidden City was amazing to see. I’m so glad we paid the 8 yuan (Chinese currency) for the audio tour that narrated our walkthrough perfectly as it could tell our location via GPS. The place was swarming with tourists though and there were surprisingly a LOT of Chinese tour groups. Steve mentioned that they probably had never been to Beijing before and may have come from other provinces. I wish I could properly remember all the names of the walls and the gates and the descriptions of the Outer Court and the Inner Court but I would probably just butcher it if I tried to describe it here. But if ever any of you are thinking of heading to Beijing and seeing this place, the audio tour is a MUST. The history of this place is just brimming with so much symbolism and meaning and there was nothing boring about knowing what each place was used for and what happened there.
I am not ashamed to own up to the fact though, that as the audio tour spoke about this place being the imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, I probably had stars in my eyes because all that was running through the back of my mind was…MULAN!!! *And fan girl’d the whoooole way through without fail*
Steve was unfortunately subjected to crazy fan girl whisperings which sounded a little something like, that is where she set off all the fireworks! And she totally flying foxed across those roof tops, and oh my gosh! THIS IS WHERE SHE MET THE EMPEROR!!! - *hearts in eyes, hearts in eyes, hearts in eyes*.
Annnd this is why I fail at maturity. Now, oh, look! Here are some photos!
Wall of tourists
Unfortunately, I have no photos from when we had dinner with Steve’s Auntie’s family, but she took us to this awesome place that served some great tasting Peking Duck and some other yummy Chinese food which I have no names for because I was too busy stuffing my face.
In conclusion though, here is the only photo I had from the dinner, and some close ups of the pretty little details we saw from the Forbidden City.
Dinner
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