Back log #1: China - September 2012

We visited China during September 2012. It was a wonderful trip and I intended to blog at the time, but most forms of social media were blocked in Beijing.

Why has it taken me so long to catch up? The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.

Beijing smog is notorious and levels soared dramatically during early 2013. So we expected our visit to be filled with hazy, autumn days. Day one lived up to expectations:
 

But the wind got up during the night and the next morning...

 

We always try to start any overseas trip with a walk in the daylight to try and fight jet lag. So first up - a walk to the Beijing Ancient Observatory -  a pre-telescopic observatory built in 1442 during the Ming Dynasty (and only 10 minutes' walk from our hotel in the Dongcheng District.) The site is administered by the Beijing Planetarium, but is now a museum and houses several ancient and wonderful astronomical instruments;

My personal favourite, the whimsical and ever-so-slightly demonic bunny style clepsydra (water clock):

Later that day, armed with a sheaf of helpful hints and translations from the Beijing Knitters Guild we made it out to a recommended yarn shop...why yes, the yarn is extremely cheap and I did buy some...

 We walked back.

Day 2: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City Another beautiful autumn day in China. Tiananmen Square, to the right the Great Hall of the People, to the left of the picture, the Monument to the People's Heroes. (The National Museum of China is on the far left of the square, out of shot).

And at the far end of the square, Mao Zedong's Mausoleum. By 8am the queue to visit Mao's tomb has already stretched into a two hour wait. We didn't. Seems to me the huge line of people says more  than a 36 year old corpse ever could.

Down at the opposite end of the square, the queue to enter the Forbidden City was a little shorter.

Several hundred photos later and what can you say that hasn't been said before? Staggering.

And here's what I was photographing on those doors...

We walked back from the Forbidden City too. There weren't many other options.

Part Two: Day in the Country: Mutianyu and The Great Wall
The following week was taken up with work and conferences - with occassional snatched visits to the shops:

 
 

and for high powered haggling at the Silk Street Market):

We still hadn't seen the Great Wall, and the only opportunity was to visit on a Saturday. We were  warned that the Wall can get incredibly crowded and that Saturday was the busiest day of the week, particularly with such gorgeous weather. But decided to go anyway, choosing one of the more rural and wilder sections of the Wall at Mutianyu.

The Beijing Office chose a highly recommended guide for us - again we had been warned that far too many operators include "surprise" side trips to tourist traps selling souvenirs. We wanted to avoid that. We didn't quite manage it. In fact there were two stops, a whistlestop tour through a Jade factory, with a low key (and unsuccessful) sales pitch. 

Our second side trip was unexpected and fascinating - a cloisonne workshop.

We were told that it was one of the last workshops of its type in China. Who knows? Certainly the working conditions were primitive, no sign of OH&S here:

The sales pitch was even more low key here, but I love cloisonne so we did buy a couple of small pieces. And then, finally, it was higher up and further in to the star attraction- the Great Wall. 

Sections of the wall at Mutianyu are very steep and there are three choices for viewing them: walk all the way from the car park, take a chair lift (up to the right hand side of the wall and take a water slide back down), take a cable car up to the left hand side and the highest sections of the wall. 

With no time to walk from the car park and no desire to take a water slide back, we opted for the cable car. And what a fabulous surprise - there was hardly anyone up there:

By some fluke - we had scored a brilliant, uncrowded day. Not only that, but it seems that most people choose the chair lift /water slide option, so we had a fabulous, unhurried visit. Our guide, Brian, was very excited - saying that he had never seen it so deserted (he took nearly as many photos as we did):

 

This photo was taken two weeks later at the Badaling section of the Wall: