Sightseeing: Ancient Beijing

Why is it that the week you return to work after leave, it is so ridiculously busy that your relaxation is undone almost immediately? Upon getting into work this morning, I was informed that I need to clear my evening schedule and will probably be here until 10-11pm. Fun times... Luckily, I have pre-written a stack of Beijing blog posts so you can still hear about my adventures!

We visited the Great Wall at Mutianyu, the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven. Here are some photos from the Great Wall:

 

Mutianyu is a great section of the wall to visit: not too many tourists, and not too far from Beijing. Unfortunately it was a little foggy/smoggy the day we went, but it was still beautiful. There are lots of steps to climb, it is exhausting and a great workout!

We took the toboggans down the mountain which was a lot of fun. In hindsight, we should have taken the chairlift up instead of walking the 100s of steps (and saved our energy for walking on the actual wall, which is very steep at parts).

We only had blue skies on one day - it's amazing what a difference it makes to photos. It had rained heavily the day before (we shopped!) and was very windy, which must have cleared the air. On every other day, the smog was terrible. It is very polluted, worse than any other Asian country I have been to (a lot worse than India for example).

 View over the Forbidden City from a temple at a park behind it - this is a must see.

 Tienanmen square. I had forgotten that the Government completely covers up the history of what happened here, there are no memorials for the protestors - they are all communist centric.

Rock temple in Forbidden City - all man made!

 The entrance to the Forbidden City, a tribute to Mao.

 Forbidden City

The Summer Palace

Summer Palace

 Temple of Heaven - not sure what the significance of this writing is, but it is certainly beautiful.

 Temple of Heaven

Next post: Sightseeing in Modern Beijing!