And if I turn around ...
Yes. I spent a few minutes feeling a smidge guilty about the 5starishness but I got over that pretty quickly.
And please forgive me for stating the obvious but holidays are awesome, especially it turns out, on a tour. If you spoke to me before we left you'd know I was a bit dubious about holidaying on an organised tour. Not only was there no need to be concerned (yes I can hear you saying 'I told you so') but apparently these tours do something to time! We have, for instance, only been here for one day and yet it feels like a week and we have seen a week's worth of sights ... today!
Here they are ...
and once again ...
This is a gate. Can you believe that? can you imagine the size of the wall this gate would have fitted into!? They do BIG here without batting an eyelid. Most of the city walls have been removed to make way for a burgeoning city, some small parts remain and of course these huge gates, there's four left I think.
Tian'anmen square: Biggest square in the world which was strangely not as impressive as I thought it would be. Like many people I know it as the scene of high drama in 1989 but of course there's no sign of that now. There are very serious guards all over the place, but you'd expect that in any significant cultural site in today's climate.
Forbidden Palace: really really big palace. This is the first of many gates and moats and courtyards before you get to the real forbidden bits (where the Emporers lived).
Then we went for much delish food at lunch on our way to the Summer Palace - which is even bigger in area, 2/3 of which is covered by this man-made lake.
You might notice the wonderful wendyweather 6 & foggy perfect (well okay snow would make it perfect but there's time for that)
My pedometer had a nervous breakdown a this point in the day.
We had an hour or so to get ready for a Peking Duck banquet dinner (which was the same meal as lunch but with duck).
After dinner we went to get glasses. At 8PM! Thanks to our lovely guide who took is for a walk to work off dinner (I did mention that we'd already walked off meals for the next week today but she said it doesn't work that way). She took us to a little shop where MGM and I got two pairs of glasses (for less than one pair at home) that will be ready tomorrow and delivered to our hotel!
90 min in room massages to finish the day.
Day 1 was awesome and wow ... I'm wondering how going to manage 13 more of these days!
Sneaking back for another read and comments. Downside of reading these on the sly at work is that I always meant to leisurely comment at home - but of course that never happens.
ReplyDelete1. I predict that your glasses will be awesome.
2. The lake at the summer palace is amazing! I love that bridge.