Tourists in Beijing

Although I'm in Suzhou now, let me take you back to Beijing for a moment. Prior warning, this is a pretty photo heavy post but these are probably some of my favourite photos from my time here so I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do!

Apart from all the training and nights out in Beijing, we did manage to do some sightseeing with varying degrees of success. TTC and LoveTEFL organized a day of the 'essential' sights of Beijing. I'm not sure how essential some of the stops were but it was a good day out and it turns out climbing the Great Wall is an excellent way for a large American to sweat off a killer hangover!

After an early start to catch a coach, our first stop was the Great Wall of China. This was one of the things I had wanted to do most in China so I was ridiculously excited. However, I hadn't quite imagined how many steps we would have to climb and just how cold it would get at the top, as we climbed higher the water in our water bottles actually froze!

We started our ascent at Ju Yong Wan where we were told that we would have 1688 stairs to climb. Easy. 

Turns out that firstly 1688 stairs is a lot of stairs and secondly, that the stairs on the Wall are either massive, so you basically have to crawl, or tiny, so that 20 steps moves you a couple centimetres higher. It was like the most intense cardio session ever. Forget the cross trainer, climb the Great Wall!

About half way up I was ready to quit and just take half way as having climbed the Great Wall of China but Will dragged me onwards and up and eventually I made it to the top; moaning all the way. But despite all the horror of climbing, being at the top of the Wall was absolutely worth it. It was amazing, and the whole thing was romanticised by the views and snow flakes in the wind. I will be forever greatful to the bullies who got me to the top!

After stumbling back down the Great Wall  we all got back onto the coach to defrost and feel pretty proud of ourselves. I think our egos were slightly unnecessarily inflated by our tour guide, Susan, calling us all heros. Some people got 'golden' engraved medals to commemorate the occasion, I can't decide whether I'm really sad that I wasn't one of those who wore their medel for the rest of the week (possession of a medal turned into a drinking game) or if I am really really happy I didn't succumb to the tourist trap. For now we'll go for happy and take the photos as memories enough.

Next came lunch and a Jade 'museum', this section of the day did nothing for me and is literally not even worth writing about so onwards to Tiannamen Square!

Tiannamen Square

I personally was completely underwhelmed by Tiannamen Square.  I'm not sure what I was expecting but with all it's history and the famous photos I was hoping for some kind of emotional reaction. But no. I couldn't even visualize any of the photos from history class as being from the same place. Weird. The only moment which held some resonance was when a troup of guards in uniform marched passed us in the ominous way that only control-heavy countries witness. But still overall underwhelmed, which is a shame. But it was still good to see, I just wish we'd had the time to see Mao lying in state and the Forbidden City. I guess that's something for when we head back to Beijing at the end of placement. 

After tourist day we didn't particularly feel like we had really seen Beijing so we decided to take it upon ourselves to see some sights on our last afternoon together before heading to placements. Our aim was to go see the Lama Temple and have an afternoon soaking up the spirituality of the most famous temple in Beijing. 

However all these hopes were dashed when we arrived at the temple only to find that it closed in 10 minutes. We made the executive decision that paying 50RMB to run around a temple probably wasn't worth it so we settled instead for taking some photos outside the (very pretty) entrance gate to the Lama Temple, it may not have been the temple proper but it could be considered a warm up visit until next time. Visiting the Lama temple properly is now just another thing to add to our list of things to do next time we're in Beijing!

Entrance to the Lama Temple

After the Lama Temple fail we decided to make our way to something that wasn't going to be closed. Eventually we made it to a pretty frozen lake, which no one seems to remember the name of. Helpful. But it really was very pretty, the entire lake had frozen over and people were iceskating and generally sliding around on the ice. We tried to go on the ice but, of corse, it was now closing. Instead we settled for spectating out of the cold from one of the many cafes around the lake. We may not have had particularly good luck with actually doing things that day but at least we tried and now we know to go earlier next time round!

So far touristing in Suzhou has been more sucessful and we've actually managed to stumble upon a fair number of things (which were actually open!) in our few weeks here. I'm pretty certain over the next 5 months we are going to have fully exhausted all the tourist locations in our little city we all home for now.