The hotel was the Novotel - nice furnishings and beds. Quite pleased with it. The tour group numbered 30 with a young guide called 'Summer'. Notables in our tour group include Peter and Jo, two Geordies (uncle and his nephew) and a Jo and Alisdair and a father and son team, Bryan and Nick.
Waking up early, had breakfast and it was Tian'anmen Square the first stop. Magnificent place, huge and packed with people. Little did we realise that it was the national holiday for the PRC. The square had 1000s of people there and it was easy to get lost. The square had Mao's mausoleum on one side, the forbidden palace at the North and the People's congress on the third side. All quite impressive.
Most people got a bit lost there!
The Forbidden palace was next and we passed under a big painting of Mao. The city itself was very impressive and one can remember the scenes from the film, 'The Last Emperor' to appreciate the scale of the city. The tour was brilliant however, we got a peek at what the emperor and his entourage had in terms of furnishings and how they lived, all isolated from the general population. I had the roughguide to China's history with me (borrowed of my brother) and it proved to be an interesting and illuminating read.
Lunch was so-so.
Weather was starting to rain too.
The Great Wall was a visit that was amazing. However, the place was HEAVING with people, the wall was chocka with people all struggling to get onto the wall. Me and bro' made it the wall and walked along it for a few towers. Amazing place though. The climb was hard and some of the steps were very, very steep too. However, it was a magnificent feat of human engineering and seeing the wall stretch for miles and miles off into the horizon is breath-taking. Seeing it crawling with humans was another breath-taking scene too. Two for the price of one.
Coming back we then went to the summer palace and the Ming tombs. Very impressive too.
The night was chinese opera and then off to bed. I was knackered.
Last day in Beijing and I decided with some others to visit the zoo. It was chucking it down and it took some time for the hotel to arrange taxis....even if they were parked outside! However, for 20Yuan we were off to the zoo. I don't much like zoos anymore, the attraction of seeing caged animals has lost it's appeal for me. The main draw would be the pandas but with it raining, the panda refused to come out. Except one who promptly turned around and stuck his head back into the house. Leaving it's arse outside. Typical.
The other animals were housed in what I consider to be poor condition, in fact, the Beijing zoo itself looked tired and dilapidated. The animals were caged in far too small enclosures. Sad to see a magnificent leopard pacing back and forth in his tiny room. One stride and he had to turn around and one more stride, he turned around again. So sad.
However, what can zoos like this do? They certainly can't just release the animals now can they? Over time, they'll change and the animals will probably die off. Such is their lot in life.
We returned to the hotel and prepared to leave for Xi'an....ancient Chinese capital.
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