Beijing Adventures: The Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tiennemen Square

Today was our big scheduled tour day in Beijing. I woke up a few minutes before the alarm, and set out to find a quick breakfast. There was a 7-11 next to the hotel, so I found a little pastry and container of yogurt to munch on. It was raining, so I also picked up an umbrella in case it continued — and to hopefully ward off the rain.

We were all down in the lobby ready to go with the tour — well all of us except Maria. Apparently she set her alarm for weekdays only, so hadn’t even woken up yet. It wasn’t too bad though, so 10 minutes later, we were on our way.

Our first stop was at the Forbidden City. I’d been there once before, but it was still interesting to go back another time and here the information about everything along the way. Our tour guide Sarah kept us pretty well in line, but we still had plenty of time to take plenty of pictures — including numerous Jose-directed group photos. The interesting fact that stood out today was that if you slept one night in each room of the palace, it would take 27 years to sleep in them all.

After the main part of the Forbidden City, we crossed the street and when into the garden area which was very beautiful. The smell there was probably one of the best I’ve experienced since I’ve been here in China — perhaps save the smell of the mash near the brewery. There was another hugging tree, so Matthias and I couldn’t resist reenacting the scene.

We then moved onto a typical half-sales pitch half-ceremonial tea house. Despite knowing that it was ultimately a pitch, the ceremony itself was really quite nice. We got to try six different types of tea, ranging from milk oolong to jasmine green to a fruit tea. I think the milk oolong was my favorite from a pure tea perspective, but the dried fruit was a close second as you could eat the fruit at the end. The fruit was really good, so I didn’t hesitate to eat the rest.

After that, we took a short bus ride over to Tienneman Square. We didn’t spend much time there, but it was still pretty impressive to see such a huge plaza in the middle of the city. They said that it can hold a million people at the same time. We also had our group photo taken, but Sarah, our guide, was a bit disappointed when no one wanted to buy one. This was now the second of what would be several more questionable recommendations (first was the tea house). She did say she would buy one for the group which was pretty nice, even if it was just done to seed the pot.

Even though Katherine suggested that we eat lunch now (as it was getting close to 2 PM), Sarah said, “No, let’s go to the wall.” We had been surprisingly lucky to avoid the rain to this point, but when we got in the van, it picked up a little bit again. That also meant that traffic got worse and it took quite a while to get out to the wall. On the way we were pitched various high priced food options — which we turned down each of the times she asked. The biggest crock was that she “didn’t think any of the other shops would be open by the time we got there” even though she goes to the same place 4 or 5 times per week. Needless to say, we found food for about 20% of the price she originally suggested when we got there and were just fine.

Katherine, Matthias, and I wandered down to get some local food (I had a pork sandwich thing and a bottle of fresh yogurt) while the others (including the guide) had Subway. Coincidentally enough, we did stop in the most expensive original restaurant to use their bathrooms and you could definitely tell it was a tourist trap. Good call on avoiding it!

At that point, we started the actual Great Wall portion — this time we went to the Ba Da Ling section of the wall. Rafael asked if anyone wanted to run up the wall, and if you know me, I can’t say no to a fitness challenge, so he and I took off while the others proceeded to walk a bit more slowly behind us. He and I had a really good time climbing together, though we definitely did take the time to stop, take some pictures, and enjoy the scenery along the way.

 We made it to the highest peak we could see before we ran out of time — and we certainly didn’t want to have to climb up on the way back any more than we had to. About 5 minutes into the decent, we ran into Katherine, Zoey, and Maria, so the five of us then went down the rest of the way together. The five of us got a chance to take some really cool pictures together along the way as well. There was also a guy engraving little metals with names and the date of when you climbed the wall, so we each decided to stop and get one. (Thanks Rafael for treating!)

Also on the way down, there was some sort of activity going in celebration of Beijing hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics. They had a drone flying overhead, guys running up the Wall with a huge banner, and hundreds of people climbing up with big flags. We hijacked one for one last group photo before we went down and caught up with the rest of the group. And it wouldn’t be a trip out in public, if we didn’t get stopped a few times to get asked for photos!

Tired, hot, and quite honestly pretty gross, we all piled back in the van for the trip back to Beijing. We had fun looking at everyone else’s photos for a bit, but then most of the gang fell asleep shortly after. [And I’m sitting here in the van writing this blog]

When we got back, it was starting to get a bit later, but given that we all were so hot and sweaty, we decided that the time spent in the shower would be time well spent. We then went over to the nearby mall to grab a bite to eat. We struck out a the first few restaurants since a lot of them closed at 9, but we eventually found a sushi restaurant that was open for another hour. The sushi was really good! We wanted to order a big platter which was apparently only available to-go, so that really just meant that we had to pay in advance and then they let us have in the restaurant. They had a bunch of eel dishes which I absolutely love (and they didn’t disappoint). It was pretty reasonable in the end as well. We all left full for the equivalent of about $13.

After that, the rest of the guys decided to go back to the hotel since they planned to get up really early and go to the Summer Palace. That left Katherine, Zoey, Susa, Maria, and I who wanted to go out for a bit. We found a place in the big plaza nearby that was serving Tsingtao, so we sat down there and enjoyed the very pleasant evening. It had finally cooled down a bit and the humidity was some of the lowest I’ve seen here in China this trip. After that, we decided to catch up with Melisa who was meeting with one of her local IBM colleagues. They were about 3 km away, so we decided to take two electric pedicabs over to the bar — which was quite an experience! Here are these two guys cruising around the streets of Beijing on not much more than a bicycle with us in tow. It was certainly something to be remembered.

The bar itself was fun as well! They had a few guys that were playing guitar and singing mostly Chinese songs, but it was a great atmosphere. Susa convinced us that we should yet again sample a bottle of some tequila… Which turned out to be some of Mexico’s finest (aka Jose Cuervo). Since it was such a nice night and we were close, we decided that walking back would be a nice way to finish the evening. Katherine even found a balloon on the way back that turned into a game that sped up the walk.