Leave Heathrow for honeymoonArrive in BeijingTour of a Jade Factory, the Ming Tombs and Great Wall of ChinaTour of Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Summer PalaceArrive in Hong Kong on way to SydneyArrive in SydneyLunch at Guylian, Opera House tour and walks through Botanical Gardens and The RocksVisit our friend JakobExplore SydneyTrip to Featherdale Wildlife Park and Blue Mountains National ParkWild Australia Experience tour of Taronga ZooSpent time with our friend Jakob, meal at Aria restaurant then night-time photosArrive in Cairns then travel to Palm CoveSnorkelling in the Great Barrier ReefHelicopter ride over the Great Barrier ReefArrive in Brisbane on way to Cook IslandsArrive in Auckland on way to Cook IslandsRelax on Cook Islands at the Rumours of RomanceArrive in Auckland again on way homeArrive in Los Angeles on way homeHome again!
 | rfuller |  | Richard & Jana's Honeymoon... |  | Tour of Tian'anmen... |
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May 14 2009, 08:00 AM
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Beijing, China
First stop was Tian'anmen Square which was not what we expected. I know it's hard for a large area of pavement to look impressive, but there isn't a lot to see or take photos of. The square is surrounded by the government building, Chinese museum of history, Forbidden City and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. The Mausoleum is only open for a few hours a day so the square is insanely busy first thing in the morning with Chinese people queuing to see his body.
From the square we walked in to the very impressive Forbidden City. Built in 1406 when Emperor Zhu Di moved the capital back from Nanjing to Beijing, it was home to the Emperors of China during both the Ming and Qing dynasties. You really do not realise how big the place is until you're stood outside the first of its three entrances. The city contains 999 buildings to show that it is almost as important as the great Jade Palace in heaven which has 1000. The buildings are repainted every five years and with great care to detail but despite all this renovation, you can only view about 40% of the city. This is still a LOT and you could easily spend a day just here! Our guide was very knowledgeable about Chinese history, architecture and pointing out useful features of the city without overwhelming us. Each of the buildings are just stunning and the Imperial Garden was just beautiful. At first you think it must've been very lonely for the Emperor in such a vast palace until you realise there were probably thousands of people maintaining the city.
Most tours in Beijing take you to a factory to show off an aspect of Chinese manufacture for which they are famous - this time it was a silk factory. We got taken on a brief tour showing where they get the silk from and how then convert this in to items such as a duvet. Some of the clothing in the store was very nice and well made but we weren't that interested in purchasing anything and prices are not that much cheaper than back here in the UK (unless you can haggle really well) so spent our time chatting to the others on the tour. Eventually they showed us where the exit was and we continued to the Temple of Heaven.
Built in 1406 at the same time as the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven is a complex of buildings used by Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties to pray for a good harvest. The main temple is a very beautiful, 3-tier circular building that was impressively made solely out of wood and using no nails. You are unfortunately not allowed inside any of the buildings here but as they are all designed for prayer, you can see most things from the entrance. The central Vault of Heaven is a smaller structure and surrounded by the Echo Wall. Because the wall is circular so an excellent shape for reflecting sound, they reckon people standing against it can clearly hear noises made anywhere along it although there is a barrier in the way to preventing us testing this. From here we went to the Heavenly Centre Stone where the Emperor used to make his prayers to Heaven for favourable weather. It's a very pretty location and does not take long to view.
Lunch time! Unlike the buffet yesterday, today we went to a restaurant in a pearl factory where they brought a selection of dishes out for us to try. The meat dishes were very nice but Jana was unfortunately limited to rice, two types of cabbage and a bland tofu soup. We were then given a tour of the pearl factory and each allowed to take a pearl from an oyster Jana picked. As the group after us put theirs back, Jana took theirs too!
Our third main stop for the day was the Summer Palace. It had started to rain very lightly by the time we got here but not for very long. Built later than the Forbidden City, it is actually larger however three quarters of the palace is technically water. The lake and gardens are very beautiful and it's very obvious why the Empress Dowager Cixi spent most of her time here. The garden also contains the "Long Corridor": a 728m long covered promenade that is officially the longest of its kind. The entire structure contains over 14,000 unique paintings and whilst we had no chance of looking at all of them, the ones we saw were very beautiful. When we got to the end of it, there was a very large Marble Boat built by Cixi to relax in. From here we paid the massive sum of ¥10 (£1) each to ride on a dragon boat back to the start.
We stopped briefly at a Tea House where they showed us all the types of tea you can get in China (very nice if you like tea) then took a long drive back to our hotel via the "Birds Nest" again. We popped to the convenience store to buy some noodles/snacks for dinner then relaxed watching TV.
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