Adrienne Pereira: History, Visited. Part 1, and snapshots of Beijing

China was never on my list of Must-Visit places..... But business brought me to Beijing; and of course I just had to visit the the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. The Wall, which started construction in the 5th Century BC (!!) is an amazing work of art, stretching 8,851 km across mountains. How on earth they did it at the time is amazing. Poor slaves. The Wall can be seen from outer space and I was very excited to be able to climb it, albeit for a duration of 3 hours and that too, after taking the Cable Car! The stone walls simply exude history and Mish would have loved it. Below are photos of my trip. Part 2 will follow on my visit to the fabulous Forbidden City.

Love it or hate it, it's now a Beijing icon.

Kites flying near the Birds Nest.

Condiments to accompany your Hot Pot meal

Yilong, our AAPG Student Chapter President, who took me to the Sichuan Hot Pot restaurant. He and his girlfriend are from Sichuan and boy can they eat chilli. See the dark red dip/soup. Pure chilli. It was too hot for me.

Traditional dancers from northern China

2 Yuan per trip from entry to exit, anywhere. (about 40 Singapore cents). Their subway system has about 20 lines, has many carriages, is complicated as hell but is efficient and clean; but is packed all the time. I really hope we never become that crowded a city.

The stations can serve many carriages; foresight which our MRT system did not have.

Packed all the time.

Tiananmen Gate. I felt a sense of unease.

The Chairman and I

The mausoleumof Mao Zedong (the two tier building), across from Tiananmen Gate. It's hard to get a photo without a human in it.

Subway crowd; 9.30 pm.

There are hundreds of stairs/escalators to climb within the subway system

The platform where I ran! We made it to our Great Wall train with 5 minutes to spare. I, who have not run for nearly 3 years, ran. We ran into one of the carriages, hoping to walk through to the front where our seats were located, but it was quite impossible. So we got out, and ran again. My feet were in shock.

My very first view of the Wall.

So exciting!

Pure history. How I wanted Mish to be the one in my place.

To get to the start of the Walk up, it's a dangerous 2-lane road, with buses and cars horning at you; the 5-foot way just can't cope with the crowds so many people walked along the road.

What NOT to do in China.

"A gentle reminder - your kid's grown taller".

I cheated while the poor sods (or lucky ones) climbed.

The paths alongside the Wall were quite perilous

And still they climbed.

It was hot and glary; hair messy from using China-tour cap!

Yilong was the perfect host. He had bought tickets in advance. Here he is with his girlfriend.

Queuing to go down one of the paths.

Damn dangerous.

HISTORY

Steep steps on part of the Wall.

One of my favourite shots.

Me on the Great Wall of China, with that damn cap in hand.


And still they climbed. By the way, Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John climbed the Wall for charity. Unfortunately, we were not on the Wall at the same time...