Beijing 2008 to 2010 Part One

Beijing 2008 to 2010

My first ever trip to Beijing was in 2008, right after the Olympics.
It was really exciting to finally be able to see the capitol city of China!

Since then, I have been to Beijing several times, each time discovering new places.
Hope you will like the photos!

One of the most memorable sights was the Great Wall.
We took a hired car, early in the morning at 6am and got to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall at 7am, before the mass of tourists.

Took a cable car up to the wall.
Unfortunately, the toboggan ride down was under repair.

It was an extremely clear day with amazing blue skies so we were quite fortunate then.

On my 2nd visit in 2010, the weather was not so clear.
Here is a pic of the cable car.

Our next stop was the Forbidden City.
This place is seriously huge!

My favorite part is the garden at the rear.
It eventually leads out to the north gate.

On a separate trip, I went to WangFuJing, a collection of old streets filled with street vendors selling food and stuff.
This is where you can see the strange food items like scorpions, starfish etc.
No desire to try any! :)

My favorite place in Beijing is definitely the Summer Palace.
It is slightly north of central Beijing, maybe around an hour or so.
It is a very big compound where the royalty spend their summers.
There is a huge lake, with willow trees, tall pagodas, very Chinese.

This is the famed "Long Corridor" at the Summer Palace.
It is very straight and long, decorated with different paintings.

 

 Below is the "Marble Boat". Supposedly made of marble.

It was quite a climb to get to the top of the pagoda but well worth it!
The views were really good!
This also leads to the North gate, one of three exits/entrances from the Summer Palace.
The others being the West and East gates.

The section after the Pagoda is the "Suzhou town" which is meant as a replica to Suzhou, a town with lots of waterways. It isnt a very good representation with nothing worth viewing and I dont recommend going down for a walk.

Well, this post is longer than it seems, so I'll create a part 2.

Thanks for reading!