trip to Beijing

Hi guys,

How are you? Enjoying the new year? Just came back from my 4-day trip to Beijing. I went with Steven and my friends Xiao and Javier. It was soooo cold! I bought an extra warm jacket a few days before we went and I am really glad that I did. Even with 5 layers of clothing (incl. thermal underwear, very sexy. not.) i was freezing. When we met up with a friend of ours he was laughing at us, because aparantly it wasn't all that cold for them. He did just return from the Ice Festival in Harbin (max -27 degrees!!!), so I think his judgement must have been a bit off.

We went there by night train, thank god they still had soft beds available, maybe you remember how I went to ShanDong province last time. Didn't really feel like repeating that experience. Unfortunately the pricedifference between hard seat and soft bed is crazy. Didn't stop us though. We missed the first train, got on another completely empty train, still had to share one tiny room with the four of us (smelly feet, snoring you get the picture haha), had McDonald's breakfast (pancakes!! hashbrowns! Sometimes Holland is soo far behind in civilization haha) and then took the subway to our very cheap :) and comfortable apartments.

After we all rested for a few hours, we went to visit the Forbidden City (beautiful, but too big&cold to really enjoy) and Tian'an men Square (what's up with the size of that?). Shocked by the cold as we were, we pointed out the first department store we saw on the map to the taxi-driver and had Korean for dinner. Went out that night, Beijing night-life is refreshing compared to Shanghai. Didn't manage to see enough of it though, as we ended up at Vic's (maybe even better then my favourite club in Shanghai) and crawled in a cab where all of us managed to fall in sleep in 2 minutes.

The next day we visited Temple of Heaven park, where the emperor(s) used to come and pray for the good of The People (e.q. more food please). As it was right across the park and we were freezing yet again, we decided to go to Hongqiao pearl market, which besides a few pearls just sells a lot of fake random stuff. The boys had peking duck that night, but not before they tried a few schorpions at the Snack Market. See pictures. They also had larves, big ass furry spiders and lizzards on sticks. my favourite though were the (still alive!!!) schorpions on a stick. seriously almost made me cry (and through up).

Day after that we rented a van that would take us to the Ming tombs, Great Wall and Birdsnest Olympic Stadium. Couldn't find it for the first hour though as we were supposed to meet at Lin Ye University, of which there aparently are two. The (honestly very nice) tourguide also took us to a jade factory, silk factory and tea ceremony. So we saw a lot that day, really the best day of the whole trip. Btw we hiked really far onto the Great Wall (reached the top bit of that area) and those stairs are steap! Legs were shaking when I went down again, but it was so worth it.

On the last day we went to the Summer Palace at Kuming lake, which is really pretty. The lake was entriely frozen and the afternoon sun was really nice for taking pictures. Which all the other Chinese people with camera's also thought haha. (I really don't get how almost every Chinese Person On Holiday owns such nice BIG camera's. Where does all the money come from?)

Took the night train back that night, almost missed it again, lost one of the four tickets in my wallet (nooooooo!), tried to get the Lady Selling Train Tickets to get us a knew one as they had barcodes and we figured she could check we bought four not three. Either our accent really sucks or it just does not work that way. The lady had a very empty look on her face and just put us on the next train. Stupid Beijing people trying to cut the line by shoving their train tickets in my face did not help the mood improve. So had to buy another ticket (80 euro's a piece :( ), got on the train and tried to forget the whole incident.

So looking back on the whole trip, it really was an awesome experience. Glad I'm back in Shanghai though, where I can understand a little more what people are saying without hearing rrrrrrr after every word and where it actually seems pretty warm. Got to study for my exams now though...

Can't believe I'm almost returning home! Will hopefully see you guys at the 30th, but untill then:

xxx and a lot of love from Shanghai