After five years of absence I had to go China once more. As I wanted to see a bit more than just the places I have been, I decided to take part in an organised trip from Beijing over Xi'an to Shanghai, mostly taking buses and trains. This meant the full package of Chinese countryside, which I unfortunately did not cover by pictures. On the following pages you find a summary of the most interesting pictures in chronological order.
After we arrived at Beijing Airport and went to our hotel, I decided to skip the introductory dinner and met my friend Chen Ying instead. We went together to the Xianshan Gongyuan (Fragrant Hill Park). That is how it looks when a jetlagged tourist meets a relatively awake local who does not feel like having got up at 2 a.m.:
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The Xiangshan Gongyuan is quite beautiful, but normally not often visited by foreigners. It lies west of the Yiheyuan (Summer Palace), which my co-travellers visited. As we were there during the May Holidays, the Yiheyuan was overcrowded. In the Xiangshan Gongyuan is was just bearable, but still busy.
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The next day we had a trip to the Great Wall and when I mean Great Wall then I mean Great Wall. The parts where we went are called Simatai and Jingshanling. Situated at the border between Beijing and Hebei, it took us not only three hours to get there, we spend also five hours walking on the Great Wall. For anyone who wants a radical treatment of akrophobia - in my case going downhill thanks to this wonderful trip to Ireland where I sprained an arm after slipping on the trip down from the hill on which the picture of mine is taken - , I can personally recommend this part of the Great Wall. Our bus waited on the other side, so in order to sleep comfortably in the hotel nothing was left than walking regardless of the terrain. As I was struggling with my fear I could not take many pictures.
This picture shows Simatai from the cable car station.
The following is a picture on top of Simatai. Please notice that this part of the Great Wall is not renovated.
These are the only pictures I have taken from Jingshanling. The one on the left shows the view from Simatai to Jingshanling. The white band that you can see are the first five of the overall 30 towers of Jingshanling. At that time I still though that we never would go there.
The next one is the view from Jingshanling to Simatai. Very impressive, but we did not know that we would need another two hours to the bus.
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