Beijing Sights & the Last of the Big Three

Visiting during Golden Week wasn't the best idea - there were huge numbers of people everywhere.  Tiananmen Square was packed.  

There were a lot of little kids waving Chinese flags around.


Unfortunately, due to the crowds, we didn't get to go to the Forbidden City - there were hundreds of people crowded around each ticket booth (they don't queue), and with that plus the crowds that would probably have been in there already.  We'll have to save that one for next time.

Instead we visited the Olympic Park, which was similarly packed despite it being 8pm on a Tuesday night.  The Olympic Stadium was pretty cool, and all lit up.  

The Water Cube was similarly cool.  The colours change - it looks very cool multi-coloured :)

We visited the Temple of Heavenly Peace, which was pretty (although still packed).  

We even attempted to visit the Underground City, which was listed in the guidebook as being a labyrinth of tunnels underneath the city for the populace to live in in the event of a Russian nuclear attack - complete with supermarkets, movie theatres etc.  Unfortunately, once we walked all of the way there, we found this.  I guess the guidebook's a bit out of date.

On our last morning in Beijing, we decided to try to see Mao - the last of Stephen's Big 3 Embalmed Communist Dictators.  We got up early to try to avoid the crowds, and left our bags behind so that we didn't have to check them in - all prepared.  When we arrived at 8:10am, we quickly got into the queue - which turned out to be 5-people across, stretching double around all 4 sides of the mausoleum - our estimate is that it was between 1km and 1.5km long.  Thankfully it was moving pretty constantly, so it only took us 1 hour 40 minutes to get in to see him.  We had a slight scare that we'd get thrown out of the queue because we didn't know to bring ID with us, but no one seemed to care despite the elaborate security - we just walked through. Stephen was very happy to have seen the last of the Big 3, and I knocked off two in the one trip - now I just need to see Ho Chi Minh :)


With that, it was time to leave China for Toronto - finally heading to our new home.  I imagine we'll be back in Beijing at some point - it was a pretty cool place, and it wasn't as difficult to navigate as I thought it would be.  Unlike most cities, four days in Beijing wasn't enough to see even half of the things that we wanted to see - the city is huge and getting around involves a lot of long walks, even if you take the subway.  Very cool though - and we still need to see the Forbidden City!  Next time...