Beijing & the Great Wall of China

Beijing surprised us. Our expectations were low and we were prepared for a cultural shock. But Beijing was a well organized, architecturally rich, relatively clean city with friendly people and abundant green spaces. The language barrier was huge as almost no one speaks English, but we were able to get what we wanted without too many surprises :) we got lost in the city and its hutongs, visited the Forbidden City and the beautiful Jingshan gardens, the National Museum of China, the Centre for the Performing Arts and hiked for 3 hours a section of the breathtaking Great Wall. We fell in love with Chinese paintings, ceramics and handicrafts, maybe one day we’ll come back for shopping! On the other hand, we felt a lot under surveillance, thanks to the thousands of cameras everywhere on the streets and strong police presence in every corner.

We leave Beijing in a night train to Xi’an, which should be a small adventure in itself... let’s see what the next episode will bring!Lue lisää