China
--> The first day!21.08.2013 Arrival in Beijing
After a tour of about 30 hours from Frankfurt over Shanghai I arrived in Beijing. My package was lost so I tryed to find out where it is by finding the right office and ask. This was the moment when I had to learn that a lot of Chinese people are not able to speak English - also not the police men. :-D
So I asked a stuadess and she was able to translate...
All in all my baggage was back and Kemal`s driver Zhang picked me up :-)
Very nice to get picked up by an own driver with an Audi A6 Limousine Version!! :-)
This evening Tim invited me for dinner. We ate some classic Chinese food. It was really great but just a little too much. :-D
Tim is a kollege of Kemal, a really nice guy. :-)
After this great dinner we went to Tiananmen Square in the middle of Beijing. There are the government buildings, also with a big poster of Mao Zedong.
And especially they have purple fountains!!!
Today I visited the Temple of Heaven, a very huge area of impressive buildings. In old times the Chinese emperors came there to pray for a good harvest because agriculture was one of the most important parts of chinese economy.
Thats me on the first building, from where the emperors spoke to their following.
A very rich hall, isn´t it? But this one was only pepare everything for the ceremony, for example for the emperror to change clothes.
This is very funny I think: A lot of Chinese spoke to me yet because they wanted a photo together with me :-D Here you can see an example for such a picture, this time I gave them my camera and said I want such a picture, too.
And, like nearly everywhere in Beijing – A big flat screen shouldn´t be missed, also at an old historic building :-D
After that I took a look at the pearl market. A big building with a lot of small shops inside. That was really crazy, everyone was trying absolutely to sell something.
I came up the escalator and in the same moment a women smeared a kind of body lotion into my face – without asking me before. That was disgusting and hilarious the same time. :-)
In the evening we had a nice dinner together with a college from Kemal from another city and Lisanne, a nice girl, who made an internship here in Beijing. We had some good pizza and very tasty wine.
Weekend!! 24.-25.08.2013
On the weekend Kemal and I traveled around together. Saturday we visited Summer Palace, a place, the emperors came to relax during the summer. A very big park with a huge lake in the middle of it and some lovely buildings.
This is me sitting on a “Dragon-Boat” on the way across the sea. If there were not that may people in the park too, you do not think that you are near a 17 million people city….
During this visit Kemal started a new business - selling lemonade on ice.
--> If you ever travel to China do never order a "cold" water... you will get a totallly frozen bottle - not only at Kemal´s kiosk!!
Uphill we had nice overview over Summer Palace and Beijing. This is the see we crossed before, started from the island.
In this evening we were at a Turkish restaurant, near the Apartment. It looks like we will try a lot of different culture´s food in this holiday.
Great Wall!!!!
Forest rules:
No.1: No Admittance
No.2: No "Naked" Flames!! :-D
I wonder who translated that!
Very impressive this old, giant building, right on the top of the mountains. All in all the wall is about 6000km long, that must have been a lot of work to build it. And all this work only because of the Mongolians...
On the upper left corner of this picture you see some chinese signs; they mean Mao Zedong, the old emperror of China, you can still find him on the bills.
Kemal and me posing on one of the wonders of the world :-)
Forbidden City!!
I also visited the Forbidden City - The place where the emperors lived. A very huge area with a lot of buildings like this one on the picture and all this just for the emperror and the "VIPs" of those thimes. Normal people were not allowed to visit these buildings. Today it´s a bit different: thousands of tourists and a lot of people who only want your money.
It was very impressive to visit this sight but it was also very hard to suffer so many people and to secure your money and phone all the time... Especially for me afer I had to pay about 90€ for just one coffee and a tea. Some people there only want to trick some tourists and they are very friendly and so on at first and after all you get the bill :-D
The biggest moved and sculped Rock in China of these times. I read they moved in in winter on a road of ice to this place...
Beijing Garden Expo
To be continued ....