Beijing Baby !!!

Here we go again

We arrived in Beijing after sleeping through the five hours it took with the bullet train from Shanghai. This was not as planed considering that we had been looking forward to experiencing this trip. I blame the sake in Shanghai..

Posing in The Forbidden City with the China symbol (peace sign)

Beijing is truly a city to bee seen and experienced with all its historical constructions and cultural heritage. I did some walking lunges on the emperor’s path through the Forbidden City, tried to se a mummified Mao bare-feet (not successful), slipped down some stairs at the Summer-Palace (luckily Karoline wasn’t watching, as I am sure she would have pointed and laughed hard, Zimbabwe style).

Karoline meditated by the “Birds Nest”, meaning the Olympic stadium for those of you who are as ignorant as myself regarding such and such. We bargained us through the infamous “Silk Market”, which was cakewalk after haggling with numerous taxi drivers in Zimbabwe, and we ate ice cream on several occasions.

Still, none of this could even come close to finally experiencing The Great Wall. This is something I have imagined seeing all my life and lately I have read so much about the history connected to this masterpiece of human construction that I was afraid my presumptions would lead to disappointment. This, however, was not the case…

Somehow we managed to elude all other tourists as we booked a sleepover near the wall and got an incredible stretch of wall all to our self. The first day we walked for hours and for every step I got vivid imaginations about how it must have been to man the wall and to be on the look out for the dangerous Huns or Mongols coming from the great plains of the north. For me this was just about as amazing as it could get.

Nøf said...

Then there was food. Chinese cuisine is not so bad if not for the INSANE amount of bad cooking oil that goes into it!! Trying local food usually meant that one would be inclined to pass some time on the porcelain at the backpacker, so we did our best to steer clear despite the huge selection to choose from in their wannabe bible menus

Luckily we stumbled over a really cosy sushi bar close to where we stayed and ended up as regulars in a couple of days. In other words: sushi saves the day, yet again.

Finally finding a descent English bookstore, we where approached by a Norwegian fellow named Rune. Rune was in Beijing to study the brain (yes, it is much more complicated then that, but it will do for an explanation), and Karoline and me got a shine to him right away, standing there in the fantasy section pushing him to read “A Game Of Thrones”.

Rune (to the left) explaining about the brain while our roomie British-Alex (to the right) seems to be paying attention.

We ate Peking duck on several occasions and it was great!! So great, in fact, that i´ll add a photo of it just to remind myself of how tasty it was when I read this to myself back in Norway.

Our days in Beijing, and China for that matter literally flew by and there was never a dull moment. If we where not occupied with seeing the sights, eating duck or eating ice cream, we strolled trough the many parks stopping only to read our books and eat more ice cream, blissfully unaware of the status of out bank accounts.

Awestruck of Chinese beauty

The last few days we went out for some duck and alcohol with our two new friends Rune and Alex. I managed not to order any sake but then I had heard so much interesting stuff about Bajo, the Chinese whiskey….

Alex, Rune and me cheering with our first taste of Bajo!!

Bajo turned out to be the closest thing to devils brew one could possibly get. Let me put it in other words: If Karoline had not refused to drink the stuff or (even more crucial) if Rune had not packed my bags, dressed me, carried me on his shoulders and put me on the subway at 08.00 in the morning, we would never have caught our train to Mongolia. Well, now we are in Ulaan Baator and in some hours we are going of for a four-day horse trek through the desert, so thank you Rune ;)

Thank you China for some amazing memories!!! 

Im coming back for shure!