Travelled: 8960 kms from Sydney to Beijing
Visited: Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Great Wall and The Summer Palace
Stayed: The Crowne Plaza Beijing
There have been some special to China in the papers and on-line because China Southern Airlines have opened up in Australia. Flying with CS didn’t do much for us, but when Singapore Airlines join the price war we decided to help. We picked up an accommodation special in a well located hotel in Beijing and we were off.
During our week we visit Tian’anmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. The weather was generally hot and humid, we haven’t seen much of the sun though. The lack of sun is mostly related to the pollution in our opinion, it seem worse in the morning and the late afternoon.
The public transport is generally excellent and very inexpensive. The rail system is well sign posted and you can work it out reasonably easy. The buses less so but we managed OK with some help from trip advisor.
The food is not Chinese (or Cantonese) as we know it in Australia. However we gave things ago and quiet enjoyed the food, the coffee was fairly ordinary and I think good coffee is still a couple of years away.
We had 6 nights (which is all we would recommend) in Beijing. Ticked a number of items of the bucket list which made the trip well worthwhile. But you do get a bit sick of seeing the air your breathing all the time and we were happy to be on the plane and heading home.
CP, Beijing, China
