I landed in Beijing, the capital of China and the first thing that struck was the pollution. In Toronto, there have been days that have smog advisories, but to my eye I don’t see much difference. In Beijing, there is a smog advisory every day! The sky is constantly grey regardless of the time of day, a blue sky and clouds were never seen (sadly, the sky was more or less like this everywhere I went in China). In Chinese cities, you will see lots of trees, plants and flowers everywhere; which they hope will get rid of some of the pollution. It isn’t helping, by night time ever day I spend there, I feel like I’ve been smoking for years.

The first stop for the ducklings was Tiananmen Square. The square itself was somehat lackluster. It had a capacity for half a million people and so it was a really big flat area. There were building surround the square such as the Chinese equivalent of the White House (but for common people), Mao’s tomb and various monuments. However, I did not see any tanks.

Also adjoing the square was the Forbidden City. This was the resident of the Emperor for the last several hundred years and had a capacity of 60,000 people (the tour guide mentioned lots of trivial facts). This was a rather more interesting place, and unfortunately we only spent about 3 hours there. I think half a day would be necessary to go thru this attraction thouroughly.

The Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Ming Tomb and Sacred Road was more of the same thing. Since these and Forbidden City were built in the same era (Ming dynasty?), the architecture was of similar style. On the third day, we took a tour of a Hu Tong district. Hu Tongs are residence areas where several generations of family share a courtyard. The point of this exercise was to show foreigners how everyday people live, giving the impression that they are poor. However, I spotted a HDTV box in one of the windows, so I think they were pulling our leg.

We also went to the Great Wall of China. You can’t really not go there since it is one of the wonders of the world (althought not in the official 7)! I was really impressed with this man-made structure since it is a monumental effort over a great deal of difficult terrain. This was one thing that can compare with natural mountains!

And that’s about it, I did a lot more stuff but I don’t think I’m going to blog in more detail (too boring). Beijing is a city with historical significance but it’s really too hot for my tastes.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: china06, chinese, diary, travelling