Last Sunday, Paul, Chloe, and I took on the challenge of climbing up to the Hero’s Point on the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Now I am not in fantastic shape and in fact, I think it would be more accurate to say that I am not in any shape at all. The act of actually walking up the path to Hero’s Point was steep, had lots of stairs, and definitely took a toll on me. Getting passed by elderly Chinese grandparents had me a little sad-faced but I’m glad to say that I conquered the Great Wall! Please excuse the gross sweaty photos of me.
Flying home to Toronto
So I’m still trying to tetris pack everything into my one suitcase but it isn’t working. I’m going to have to ask my aunt for a smaller bag to use as my carry on.
In other news, I should be arriving in Toronto on Wednesday night. I will of course take my survival guide with me on the plane as per usual. There are a couple of blog posts that I still need to make that will be added here but after that this blog will be out of commission until I travel again.
So for my last dinner in Beijing, Paul took us to a 24 hour Szechuan hot pot restaurant. As you can see in the photos above, we got a split pot with two different soups. One was the spiciest soup on the menu, and the other was the most mild. Both Paul and Chloe really enjoy spicy food but my stomach can only handle so much. I did however use the spicy soup some of the time too!
The one thing I was most impressed about was the quality of service at this restaurant. Paul explained that this chain is popular because of it’s great service and some locations even have a beautician who does manicures while people wait for tables.
Our waitress was really friendly and helped us out with some menu items since it was all in Chinese and there were a couple of things we wanted but didn’t know what they were written as. For example, the small crabs you see in the photo above are stuffed with a squid paste and pop open when they cook. Paul said that he’d had them a previous time he was there but didn’t remember the name so we had to describe in Mandarin as “the crabs that pop open”. Luckily the waitress understood and helped us order them.
She was also really understanding about my peanut allergy and ensured us that everything we ordered was peanut free and didn’t even mind when we asked her a couple times just to make sure. In fact, I’m really impressed with all of the restaurants I was at in Beijing because they were very accommodating about it.
Hiked up to the Hero’s point on the Great Wall today and actually had a glass of beer.
Both of these are pretty good accomplishments for me and I only partially regret the beer.
Parks and Temples
My day didn’t actually start off until around noon since Chloe and I didn’t have set plans for the day. We met up with Paul near Lama Temple to grab lunch at this really neat 24 hour restaurant. I don’t have all the pictures with me since I was rotating between Paul’s nice DSLR and Chloe’s camera all day. I didn’t take too many pictures with my own camera phone just because the quality isn’t as good. 
The restaurant itself was pretty neat. It had a few floors and was built to look like an old Chinese building. What was also interesting was the fact that it had a menu with specific seasonal dishes.
While I didn’t take any food pictures of this restaurant (because most of the pictures are with Chloe or Paul), the best part was the fact that the receipt included “no peanuts” beside every single dish. That staff were pretty amazing and actually, all the restaurants I’ve been to have been very accommodating about my peanut allergy. 
The first temple we went to was the Temple of Earth. You have to pay to enter all the major temples and parks inside the inner city ring in Beijing but they aren’t all that expensive. The Temple of Earth was quite large and peaceful compared to the rest of the places that I’ve been. As Paul said, it was quite a bit quieter than the Temple of Heaven which is located on the other side of the city. This temple in particular was used for animal sacrifices to appease the gods. In the above picture, I was standing on the platform where they used to do the sacrifices.
The next one we went to was Lama Temple which was just located down the street. This one was much bigger and I believe that it is a Tibetan temple. 
Interestingly enough, this statue holds the Guinness world record for being the largest statue carved out of a single tree trunk. This statue had to be at least 3-4 stories high so I find that to be rather amazing.
After the temple tours, we walked around Beihei and Jingshan park which are also located in central Beijing. Jingshan has a mountain in it which when you climb (and there are quite a few stairs) gives you an amazing view of Beijing. Especially when looking down into the Forbidden City. 
I’ll slowly upload more pictures from Hong Kong and Beijing during the next couple of weeks. But time for bed because I’m going to the Great Wall tomorrow!
Qianhai and Houhai Lake.
Paul took Chloe and I for a walk around these two lakes to check out some of the nightlife in Beijing. There are a bunch of restaurants, bars, clubs, and cafes surrounding the lake and each with their own style of music pumping out. It was actually interesting to see how many of these places had live bands or performers because I’ve never given much though to Beijing’s local music scene. Whenever I think about Chinese music it’s either the really big pop idols or Chinese opera. Oddly enough, there were also lots of random groups doing karaoke on street corners. One guy just seemed to being his laptop, some speakers, and a mic and the whole group would get going.
Interestingly enough, the guys out on the street trying to get people to go into their clubs kept coming up to me. I don’t speak any Mandarin so I had no idea what they were saying so when I replied in English, they looked a little surprised. Poor guys, they just happened to approach the 1 member of our group of 3 who doesn’t speak any Mandarin whatsoever.
Although parts of the lake were extremely noisy, when you got further down Houhai, it became extremely peaceful and serene. Further away from the nightlife section, it was lovely just to look out across the water and see all the lights reflecting off the surface.
Beijing is the type of city where you can go to a traditional tea house at 2am with a view of a lake.
Eating my way through Beijing is pretty fantastic.
These are some of the photos I took of the street food we tried out tonight. Surprisingly, churros in this city are pretty delicious and especially when served with ice cream and chocolate sauce! The portions are huge and between Paul, Chloe, and I, it was more than enough for dessert after dinner.
We also tried this strange clay pot yogurt drink which tasted exactly as the description I just gave implies. You have to drink it near the stall however because once you’ve finished, you have to return it to the stall owner.
Finally we passed by a stall with dried fruits covered in syrup. I didn’t actually try any but they looks pretty good.
So apparently Tumblr isn’t blocked by Chinanet.
Which is pretty awesome because it means I can still blog about things! Unfortunately no twitter access though and I do love me my twitter account.
Anyhow, in terms of a quick update, my friend Chloe and I safely arrived in Beijing despite a 2 hour delay in Hong Kong. We were also involved in a subway debacle which I will expand more upon later tonight.
Currently I’m just sitting in my hotel room resting my feet for a little bit. My friend Paul from high school is studying Mandarin in Beijing and has been here for a while. I haven’t seen him in a few years so I’m excited that he’s able to show us around!
So Chinanet is being ridiculous.
Even in Hong Kong all my tumblr posts keep erroring out before anything actually gets published online. I think I’ll just have to post all my pictures when I come home to Toronto.
I’m also going to Beijing for a few days so lots of forthcoming pictures hopefully!
