Memorial Day Weekend in Beijing

During New Years Eve last year, when other people were thinking of their new year resolutions, I was going, "omg, I've only got a year and a half left in Tokyo! I need to get serious about getting my must-do-or-I'll-regret-it travel done!" At which point, I booked a trip to Beijing to see the Great Wall of China over Memorial Day weekend.

I hired an english-speaking driver for the airport pick-up/drop-off and to take me to designated sites on Saturday and Sunday. That was well worth the money and really a necessity for somebody like me - a woman traveling alone who spoke zero Chinese and had very limited time.  


On Saturday, the driver took me out to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It's the "most accessible" part of the Great Wall, with a chair lift up to the Wall and a toboggan that you take down. At my driver's suggestion, I headed right once I got up to the Wall. A lot of tourists head left, because it's flatter. Heading to the right is steeper, but has excellent views. And it was nice to not be mobbed by tourists. I was very glad that I had good new tennis shoes. And I was really wishing that I had been exercising more. Because steep.

Did I mention it was steep?

The positive about having your camera with you and liking to take pictures - when you stop after two steps, you hold up your camera and take more pictures from this totally different viewpoint of the Wall and surrounding countryside. It makes you look/feel slightly less like the wimp you are, because you get more pictures while also getting a chance to breathe. Win-win! 

An un-renovated portion of the Wall.  You can see all of the plants growing along the top.

You can see pictures and know in your head that it is a Great Wall. But until you see it, you just don't comprehend. It's beautiful and impressive and huge and LONG. And when you think of the era in which it was built... Holy. Cow. 

After the Great Wall, I went to the Summer Palace. I took the dragon boat across the lake and then walked back to where I started, which allowed me to walk along the Long Corridor, which is covered in paintings, and see most of the main sites.

That night, I went to a mall a block from my hotel and ate some of the best peking duck I've ever had. 

The next day, my driver drove me around Tiananmen Square and then dropped me off at the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where the excitement of the moment was seeing some crazy lady try to crawl over the fence and get arrested. Needless to say, I didn't choose to stick around and watch. 

It was HOT, and as you can see from the pictures, the air wasn't all that great - although it wasn't at its worst either - so I spent most of the day wearing the mask I brought with me (reinforcing my thought that Beijing would not be a good assignment for me) and using my umbrella to provide shade. It's a very Japanese thing, but it works!

So I walked through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and was able to enter the Forbidden City as soon as it opened. Honestly, if I had taken the time to notice that the Forbidden City wasn't yet open, I may have walked across the street to Tiananmen Square. But I was satisfied with looking at it from where I was, and being one of the first people was helpful. Because there were A LOT of tourists. Mostly Chinese tourists. I have never encountered any tourist as pushy (literally) as little old Chinese ladies. And I can only take so many crowds, so it was good that I was there early. 

Like the Great Wall, the Forbidden City is another place where you can learn about and see pictures, but seeing really is believing. It's huge. It just keeps going and going and going. It's incredibly impressive, and one could easily spend the entire day there. But it was also crowded and so HOT outside and there was just so much to see, that after a while, I got sensory overload and was just done. I lasted about two hours. But I was very glad I went to see it. 

A part of the 9 Dragon Screen

The moat

After the Forbidden City, I went to Lama Temple - where there are multiple halls with multiple Buddhas, the last of which is 18 meters tall and carved from a single block of wood. It was interesting to observe some of the differences between how Buddhism is practiced between Japan and Tibetan Buddhism - namely in the ritual of praying. 

One side note - I found it interesting to see the difference in the guardian lions between Japan/Okinawa and China. In Okinawa, you may remember that the shisa are always one male, with mouth open to scare away the evil spirits, and one female, with mouth closed to keep in the good spirits. In China, there is also one male and one female. But the male has its paw on a globe, to represent the Emperor's power (according to one site I read), and the female has its paw on a lion cub, to represent the Emperor's fertility.

Male lion at the Forbidden City 

Female lion at Lama Temple

From Lama Temple, I went to the Temple of Heaven Park. That was nice, with large green spaces and some beautiful halls.

One of the eleven wedding parties I saw taking pictures there!

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

A final note...  I saw a number of signs like this one below. Apparently this construction is for the purpose of inconveniencing people. At least they're honest about it!