How many stops are we going? - Weekend in Beijing

Since our moms were here for two weekends, we decided to spend one of them on a trip to Beijing so that they could see the Great Wall and we could explore the other more historical areas that you don't get to see in Shanghai. We left early Friday morning and once we got to Beijing we went straight to the Forbidden City, where old emperors used to live and conduct their royal business. It was a huge area and had some amazing buildings to look at, dating back hundreds and hundreds of years ago. After you walk through some more imperial looking areas, you come out into a garden which was full of incredibly old trees and rocks. I really enjoyed the whole area and by the end of it we were exhausted from flying and then walking so far, so we went back to our hotel and got dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. 

Entrance to the Forbidden City.

Guard standing and watching the Forbidden City grounds

Huge stone carving. The stone was brought to the area by wetting grass and waiting for it to freeze so they could push it along. 

Old tree getting some help to stay up.

Us under a tree with intertwining branches.

We spent Saturday on the Great Wall (see earlier blog post) and since we got back pretty late, we went straight to dinner at a roast duck restaurant. Beijing is famous for their Peking duck, which they serve crispy with steamed pancakes, bean sprouts and cucumber which you make into a mini burrito and eat. It was by far our favorite dinner that we had with our moms and they really enjoyed it too. We were all really happy that we got to fit it in to our trip and were very impressed with the restaurant and how good the duck was. 

The next day after recovering from the wall trip, we started out by going to the Temple of Heaven which is a huge park area filled with different old monuments and old Chinese people playing hackey-sack, doing tai chi and singing and dancing. It was our moms' first glimpse of weekend life for Chinese elderly people so they really enjoyed watching them go about these different activities and thought it was a great way to spend a morning. We also saw some different historical sites including a famous taoist temple and some sites used for prayer.

One thing I know none of us were expecting was just how busy the subway system in Beijing would be. As the cheapest and somewhat most convenient way to get around, we used it to get from site to site, but were soon overwhelmed by how packed each car was. You would wait for the train to pull up and literally not think that there would be room for you to get on, but low and behold, 10 more people would squeeze in with you until you didn't even need to hold on to the bars because the people around you would just hold you up.  It always left our moms asking "how many stops are we going?" so they could count down to when they could breathe again. It was so much worse than Shanghai subways and was actually humorous by the end because it was always like a clown car spilling out at each exit.  By the end of the trip, our moms were successfully body checking people to get out and pushing the people in front of them so they would get on - they had become professional Chinese travelers, we were so proud!

Crowd of singing Chinese people.

Famous temple in Temple of Heaven park. 

All of the Chinese tourists struck this pose on the center of the mound, so we did too. 

Hugging an 800 year old tree.

After the Temple of Heaven, we rushed over to Tiananmen Square to try and fit it in before we had to check out of the hotel and get back to the airport. It was insanely crowded due to the current election and conference going on inside right now, so there were huge lines to actually get in and see inside, but we saw it from a distance and it was very impressive. The area was surrounded by various government buildings and museums, and while my mom and I headed back to the hotel (I had gotten a cold and wasn't feeling well), Joe and his mom headed to the Chinese National Museum and ran around looking at the ancient relics for as long as they could before they had to leave. They said it was huge and very cool inside so I wish we had had more time to go and see it!

Tiananmen Square

Incredible painting in the museum.

Overall, our trip to Beijing was my favorite trip we've taken so far. Not only did we get to climb the great wall, but we got to see some amazing historical sites, eat a delicious meal and above all create awesome memories with our moms. They left the next day so we said goodbye to them on the subway back from the airport. We were sad to see them go as now we go back to life as normal here at Minhang campus, with roughly 7 weeks until we return home.