That afternoon we went to check our emails at the Internet cafe & it was then that I found out that the brother of my ex girlfriend had died in a car accident. After strolling in awe for about 3 hours we decided to seek shade from the 36 degree heat & peace from the 36 thousand tourists. It contains dragon statues, colourful temples, lakes, gardens & a few sets of stairs with intricate detailed carvings. The Forbidden City took 14 years to build & covers 720,000 square metres. We entered the city with our included audio tour & the other 4 million Chinese tourist here to see this ancient wonder. As we wandered around we slowly made our way through the "Heavenly Gate" & towards the Forbidden City again. It's not hard to see how this is the biggest square in the world.
After some very wrong turns we managed to get pointed in the right direction by a very friendly non-English speaking police officer. The next day we decided to go for an early morning expedition in search of the square again. It was 10:00pm & the Square was shutting down so there was no real place left to go. F**K, I'm in China! After snapping a billion photo's of the giant Chairman Mao photo we decided to call it a night. This was one of those moments that you just stand there & think. It was late dusk, the lights of the square were lit up like Christmas & we had a whole lot of jet lag. It was amazing! It had a very unique feeling that's really hard to explain. But I wasn't hassled & there were a few Chinese people doing it so what the hey!Īfter the army procession had passed we made our way through the last gate & finally into Tienanmen Square. I know a lot of countries in the world don't allow you to capture military events on film & I figured that China was probably one of them. Not knowing if this was allowed I sat low in the crowd & filmed the army procession. They began to march through the Heavenly Gate & straight towards us so I decided to catch the action on film. It was sunset & they were performing a flag lowering ceremony which involved the flag bearers marching across the blocked street with a small army unit behind them. We made our way through a few courtyards & grand gates before being stopped by a few soldiers from the People's Liberation Army. After wandering for a few hours with no real sense of direction we ended up hitting one of the high walls of the Forbidden City which told us we had arrived. It was 5:00pm & the sun was still sitting high in the sky & although we were extremely tired we felt as though we shouldn't hit the hay just yet. That evening we decided to make our way to Tienanmen Square to check out the action.
massage in ya woom!" Needless to say I never took them up on there more than dodgy offer. Of course anytime they got Mel they would hang up but when I answered they would try to give me the line, "Yu wan massage in ya woom. It wasn't too bad for the price even though it did have a bath tub covered in mould and we kept getting phone calls from the front desk trying to sell a special massage in the room.
Our home for the next five nights was the Wang Fu Jing Da Wan Hotel which is a 2 star hotel located right in the heart of Beijing. Now that I think about it, cheap & China shouldn't be used in the same sentence it sounds really stupid. We decided to go budget for this trip & opted for a few cheap hotels in good locations. We passed by the communist customs officials quite easily & before too long we had bartered a taxi price & were off to our hotel. After 17 hours of travelling we touched down in Beijing International not knowing what to expect. We left home on the evening of the 4th of August (Mel's Birthday) flying with Singapore Airlines. The plan was to see Beijing, Xi'an & Lijiang before finishing off with Shanghai. We had been told by work that we needed to take some holidays as soon as possibly but the question was where? After a few late evenings trying different holiday options we decide to hit China for two & a half weeks. China was a last minute holiday for my girlfriend (Melinda) & I.
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