Our 12-hour flight from LAX to Beijing turned into 14 hours due to a volcano erupting in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. We had to detour around it and fly over the Arctic circle. Once we landed in Beijing, our tour guide, Jason, met us at the airport around 9:00 p.m. and took us to our hotel, the Marriott Beijing. The hotel is very nice, modern, and quite new. We were upgraded to a lovely two-room suite with views of the city. After leaving LAX at 2:20 p.m. on Monday and arriving at our hotel at 10:00 p.m. Tuesday evening, we were ready for bed!
The Marriott has a wonderful buffet breakfast with 5 or 6 stations - fresh cooked eggs, fruit, bread, and bacon, as well as dim sum, noodles, and pot sticker soup as well At 9:00 a.m. we met Jason and the other couple on the tour, Judy and Paul, from Long Island, NY, and headed for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (Chinese Imperial Palace), now a UNESCO World Heritage site. We had expected a group of 30-40 people on our tour but got lucky and are getting a private tour for four!
We had no idea how large the Forbidden City is; there are 980 buildings and it covers 180 acres.. We walked through gate after gate, leading to the palaces and residences. These are not standard gates, like we think of in the U.S., but large wood and marble structures as big as very large house. Many of these buildings were constructed in the 1400s and housed the many emperors and dynasties of China. It took one million people working for 14 years to build the city. We were told this is the slower time of the year, but there were hundreds of people visiting along with us.
After 3 hours (and about 4 ½ miles of walking), our driver picked us up and we went to a local restaurant for a typical Chinese lunch. We had cabbage soup, potato pancakes, beef and onions, rice, chicken, zucchini, and peanuts, eggplant, cabbage, and melon for dessert.
The Marriott has a wonderful buffet breakfast with 5 or 6 stations - fresh cooked eggs, fruit, bread, and bacon, as well as dim sum, noodles, and pot sticker soup as well At 9:00 a.m. we met Jason and the other couple on the tour, Judy and Paul, from Long Island, NY, and headed for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (Chinese Imperial Palace), now a UNESCO World Heritage site. We had expected a group of 30-40 people on our tour but got lucky and are getting a private tour for four!
We had no idea how large the Forbidden City is; there are 980 buildings and it covers 180 acres.. We walked through gate after gate, leading to the palaces and residences. These are not standard gates, like we think of in the U.S., but large wood and marble structures as big as very large house. Many of these buildings were constructed in the 1400s and housed the many emperors and dynasties of China. It took one million people working for 14 years to build the city. We were told this is the slower time of the year, but there were hundreds of people visiting along with us.
After 3 hours (and about 4 ½ miles of walking), our driver picked us up and we went to a local restaurant for a typical Chinese lunch. We had cabbage soup, potato pancakes, beef and onions, rice, chicken, zucchini, and peanuts, eggplant, cabbage, and melon for dessert.
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