This past Christmas weekend, my friend Susie (a fellow teacher SSBS) and I went to Beijing. We had Christmas Eve and Christmas off, so we flew out the morning of Christmas Eve and came back the day after Boxing Day. I am properly exhausted because we did so much and walked (and hiked Chinese stairs) quite a bit. I just wanted to share some pictures from my adventures there. Stories and clever anecdotes to come later.
This is Ti'anamen Squre. What is funny, we didn't read the map right at first and didn't realize that we were walking through it until we were into the Forbidden City.
I apologize for the orientation (I don't know how to change it right now). This is one of the many, many ramps that are next to the stairs in the Forbidden City.
I loved the translations of the names.
We both got up a bit before 5am because our flight out of the Hongqiao airport was at half 7. Susie ended up crashing for an hour.
The pollution was rather thick over Beijing while we were there, hitting the upper 400s...yeek.
My bed in the hostel...it was adorable.
Yay for being one of the only people trying to do a selfie without a selfie stick.
This is my classic pose I do at famous (or infamous) places. That backpack was awesome...150 RMB from the fake market.
Yay for convincing someone to take our picture. And I am not wearing PJs, they are really comfy Aladdin trousers.
We stopped for dinner and the lady was making a ton of dumplings.
After being in China for 4 months, I finally used a squatter toilet.
We went to the Great Wall (Mutianyu section) on Christmas!
Like my festive hat? We met a guy named Alfredo on our tour and he had the hat, so we all took pictures to get into the spirit of things.
A good view of the wall before the pollution came back.
This picture does not do this section justice because these were soooooo steep and so long. That last section up to the tower was literal climbing up foot high steps. It was an intense workout.
We made it! That was as high as we went. You aren't technically allowed to go past this point because the section isn't as restored, but they don't really care.
Going back down.
We went to the Night Market on Christmas night and loved the Christmas lights in downtown.
The Night Market: starfish, cockroaches, squid, spiders...ick. All fried on a stick.
Louise was a friend we made in the hostel that came out with us...all rocking masks.
Boxing Day selfie in terrible pollution.
This is Mao's mausoleum where is preserved body is on display. Who knew that December 26th is Mao's birthday?
Suzhou Street at the Summer Palace.
One of the buildings at the Summer Palace.
The edge of the lake at the Summer Palace.
We had the famous Peking duck. The day we arrived, the man who owned the hostel told us that if we weren't vegetarians that we needed to try the duck. We did. Conclusion: excellent.
This is my friend Sue that I met in England. She and her boyfriend took us out to duck.
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