I love Beijing! Our hostel, Sunrise Hostel, was right next to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.
While in Beijing, I saw a lot of historically significant things. Tiananmen Square was the first place we stopped. Wandering through Tiananmen square was really neat. There wasn't much to do there except take pictures and take pictures with random Chinese people who wanted pictures with us.
I also went to the Forbidden City. I loved the Forbidden City and was grateful that I could go inside and explore it because if I was here 65 years ago I wouldn't have been able to go inside. Crazy, huh! Inside the forbidden city is where the emperor lived along with the empress and all the emperors concubines. Fun Fact: The emperor and empress never lived together except for the first week of their marriage. After that, they lived in separate buildings and the empress would only see him if he wanted to see her. What a marriage...
The Temple of Heaven is where the emperors would go and make animal sacrifices to heaven. It was a small building but the pattern and colors on the outside were incredible. Pictures do not do it justice!
The Summer Palace is the Palace that the Dragon Lady, one of the emperors concubines lived. She was clearly his favorite concubine because she had a gorgeous palace all to herself during the summer. Dragon Lady was OBSESSED with pearls and had gowns and all sorts of different clothes made out of them. So, on the way to the Summer Palace we stopped at the pearl factory and got to see a lot of beautiful pearls. At the Summer Palace was the traveling duck! It was a giant Rubber Ducky just chilling in the water. Apparently, this Duck had been all over the world. So it was really cool to get to see and be a part of that experience!
On the way to the Great Wall of China, we made a quick pit stop at the Ming Tombs. This is the place were the Ming Dynasty Emperor and Empress were buried. It was a pretty quick stop, maybe like 45 mins tops there. It was a pretty small area and we just walked down lots of stairs, squeezed through tons and tons of Chinese saw the tombs, took pictures (of course) and squeezed our way back up lots and lots of stairs. It was really cool to see how well preserved the place is. It was also interesting to see that people had thrown money onto the tombs.
The next stop: THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. I LOVE THE GREAT WALL. I went to the Mutianyu Section. It was sooooo beautiful. The day I was there it was a pretty foggy day, but it was still so much fun and so gorgeous. Thankfully, we got there a little later in the day so there were hardly any people. :) I WAS ON THE GREAT WALL. I still can't believe it. I was there. I saw it I hiked it. I was on The Great Wall of China. Such an amazing time. My group and I had a bucket list of things to do while there.. such as; gangnam style, twerk, kiss the Great Wall and so on... It was an unforgettable time and I hope that one day I will be able to go back. Sigh, I LOVED IT!
The final thing Autumn, Brecia, Shelbie and I did was go to a Kung Fu Show. We went with some French Men that we had met during our excursion to the Great Wall. It was so fun hanging out with Armand and Daniel and learning about France as we were waiting for the Kung Fu show to start. The Kung Fu show was so incredible. It told a story about a young boy who left his mother to become a Monk and learned Kung Fu. Kung Fu is so intense and crazy. The show was so entertaining and I enjoyed every minute of it. Thankfully, the whole show was in English with Chinese "subtitles" above the stage. I guess most everyone that see's the production are tourists. After the Kung Fu show, we hit up a Beijing club and danced the night way, at one point we walked into a club next store and we saw a LEGIT ASIAN ROCK BAND. They all had long hair and looked like straight up rockers from the 80's. That was pretty funny and was so fun to listen to and watch them jump around stage. Between the Asian rock band and all the fun filled westerners that we ran into and talked to and danced with, it was an epic night to say the least.
Sadly, all too quickly the night ended and before I knew it was on a train back to Zhongshan. I was so sad to leave Beijing and to leave a truly unforgettable vacation but I will never forget all the fun time and memories made. <3 I LOVE CHINA!
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