On Sea Dragons, Ents and Nobel Peace Prize Winners: November 2006

Gigantic Metallic Christmas Tree

Building the Christmas Tree in Central... Half metallic, half plastic...

Building the Outdoor Christmas Tree in Central

Where's the REAL tree??

Other Miscellaneous Beijing Sites

Here's a couple more that I went to during my trip in Beijing,...
Forbidden Palace (Please don't ask me why I had my hands on the Red wall ... Everyone was doing it, so I just took a pose and had my friend take a shot!)

Yep, here's my electronic tour guide. I'm not sure if I was happy because I had it, or if it was because I was holding it upside down when the picture was taken...

Mao's Mausoleum. Look at all the lines! I've never seen people so cooperative before!

Temple of Heaven:

No you dimwit... You're not supposed to take a picture of the concrete! You're supposed to take a picture of the greenery!

I'm King of the World! (Well at least near the center of the world, based on Chinese tale on the Temple of Heaven....)

Xiang Shan Park:

Really nice Starbucks branch near Bei hai park

ROCK!

Da Wall

One of the main reasons why I wanted to go to Beijing for my vacation: The Great Wall.

Not just any great wall. Last time I headed off to Beijing I went to the tourist spot section, which was the Badaling section. That was cramped with people, and the wall itself was restored to the point of ... well... I can't think of a better adjective at the moment, but lets just say it wasn't all that authentic as I wanted it to be.

I wanted to see the "guts" of the Great Wall.. something that's unrestored, where you would imagine soldiers hanging about, and invaders marching up to attack fortifications. I suppose I have had too much of warcraft and strategy games. But I wasn't disappointed when I went to Chien Kou.

My friend and I had to take an hour's bus to get to the town proper nearest to the unrestored sections of the Great Wall, and we were given the choice between Simatai and Chien Kou. In the end, we chose the latter and had to take also an hour's worth of ride to the base of the wall.

In fact, it wasn't the base of the wall , but the base of the moutain that had the section of the wall. An hours' climb up on steep slopes and a lot of hiking, with the aid of a trusty old sturdy branch my friend and I picked up (likely from previous hikers who were kind enough to leave them for hikers like us), we reached the top ... and what a sight to behold. The steep climb was so worth it, and so was the trip! Take a look and see what we had to go through, and what we saw on top!

Base of the mountain:

Up there! First fortification! Awesome sights!

Second fortification:

Whoa.. can you imagine climbing up there?

My best berserker Orc impression:

Cool... awesome sights!

If this kind of mountain top scenery isn't up to standards, I don't what what will!

Just because of the this, the trip was sooo worth it!

XiangShan Park

One of the two reasons why I wanted to go to Beijing for my vacation! Xiang Shan park is one of the places I wanted to go to so I can see autumn at its best. Most people head off to Japan and Korea for this, but I opted for the cheaper alternative....

In fact, its not so bad at all. It also helped that my friend and I found a hike path on our way down the mountain... It had much better sceneries and sights than the concrete paths provided by the park itself.... Can you tell I like nature a lot? especially trees. I'd like to name one of my future kids, "Oak". My boyfriend said its a bad idea... but... really. I don't think so. I wonder if my kid will kill me for naming him that.