The Great Wall, Forbidden City, and 100 lanes of Bowling!

For want of a better word, Beijing was unique - that doesn't indicate the amazing time we had or the new things we saw or experienced - it doesn't even begin to explain the vast contrasts that make up the Great City of Beijing but right now, that's the only way I can explain our week long trip - UNIQUE!

Well, first of all spending Christmas without our family and friends, in a below minus climate and without a Kassay Family Christmas feast was always going to throw me off balance but when we arrived on Christmas eve night (still suffering from a cold I had been battling for the previous 2 days) and took our first evening stroll through the streets of Beijing my head was doing circles.

For one - I didn't have enough clothes on, the three layers of jumpers and track pants were not going to do at all - from that night on I was a 6 layer girl - ski pants and all (For the rest of this story you can think of me as rolly polly girl!). Second - The city and streets are HUGE, to cross the road, you either go under them or you have to weave your way through mountains of bikes, buses and cars. Now, when I say huge I mean as wide as a freeway and this is just a normal main road through the city - think Kings Street but the width of the Monash Freeway! Not to mention, they also drive on the 'wrong' side of the road so we often found ourselves looking for traffic in the wrong direction.

We wandered for a while feeling a little peckish and decided to hunt for something to eat. The delights that we were presented with included kebabs of scorpions, sweet and sour dog (I kid you not!), Yaks Genitals Curry and toffee coated strawberries – I went for the fruit option and surprisingly became a vegetarian for the rest of the week.

The hardened people with weathered faces were ready to return our smiles more often than not, language was a huge barrier for us and we often found ourselves staring blankly at a stall holder as they babbled on explaining something to us in Mandarin while we shook our head and said "Shi Shi" (thank you) and tried to explain that's all we knew.

The sights of Beijing, the extreme weather (seeing a frozen over lake was amazing!) and the presence of Mao with his patriotic followers in the Peoples Liberation Army and just in the general population was all a new experience for us and the 7 days spent in both past and present Beijing was an fantastic way to spend Christmas.

A PLA Solider (they seem to be everywhere you turn in Beijing) standing guard in Tiananmen Square. Just behind is the Gate of Heavenly Peace with that lovely picture of the man whose party now officially uses the "70% Right, 30% Wrong" Phrase as their party slogan - I guess at least they're embracing their weakness.

Just kicking back in front of the Forbidden City Wall.

Tim and I loved the Forbidden City. Fans of the movie "The Last Emperor" we strolled through the grounds reliving the scenes from the movie.

We visited the Great Wall at Huang Hua which was a fair way out of town but well worth the trip. To get on to the wall you have to walk from the road passing through a lady's property (paying her Y1 to pass through - that's about 20 cents). Part of the wall was reconstructed and boring but the further we walked we left the new and clambered up the old sections overgrown with trees. The vast expanse of just this relatively small part of the wall we were on was amazing and to look over at the impressive mountain ranges thinking of what the warring Mongols would have had to come through just to get to the wall you feel sorry for those armies that made it that far only to find they'd built a damn wall!!

Just looking at the contours of the wall it is amazing to think that such a structure was conceptualized in the 7th Century BC and completed to the form we see today in the 14th Century AD.

Apart from visiting aw inspiring world heritage sites we also jumped in head first and followed suit on what a lot of other Beijing locals were doing - Hitting the Ice! Instead of slipping on the skates I hired this bike/skater thing and had fun feeling like a real bad ass hooning around the frozen lake.

The trip was made of so many monutmental experiences as well as a bundle of little ones like being hit in the head with a coat hanger, winning tea at a bowling alley, giving a little girl a flag of China and seeing her beam with excitement and having Tim see what he'll look like when he's 60....

(Somewhere along the way Tim's oriental side has phased in and out according to the shopping mall gizmo that created this little gem!)

Back in Hong Kong - enjoying the warmer temperature and the fact that there's now less chance of being served dog when i order chicken. Beijing is a unique place (there's that word again) and one we're glad we've added to our "been there" list.