Tag Archives: Travel

Pingyao, Sabbatical

Day 10 – Pingyao City Wall

After a good night sleep we woke up to find out that there was no power. After asking Lilly we quickly found out that the whole inner city was out of power and it should be back somewhere in the afternoon. No Problem, we do not need electricity, right?

So we had a very good breakfast (dumplings, egg, toast) and went to do a walk over the city wall of Pingyao. There we found this crazy old guy making a living by posing for photos, and tourist as we are we of course had to join this performance.

From the city wall – we walked from the south gate to the west gate, about 1,5 km – you have a great view on the rooftops of Pingyao and can really appreciate the old city center. Then you turn around and see building blocks after building block, the best way to feel the up rise of the dragon.

After the wall tour we went to a local food market and had some quickly made noodle soup and other food. Especially these beautiful little mushrooms really did it for me. Tired from walking we took a small tuktuk back to the hostel and rested – of course still no electricity 🙂

To conclude our tour of Pingyao for the day we visited the famous first bank of China and went down in its vault. Charlotte was totally amazed “Wow, wow, wow, daddy, look at all the gold they have here, wow wow wow…” of all the replicas that were stashed there 🙂

Before dinner we visited a kind of small children park outside of the south gate and got a flying daughter.

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 6 – Relaxing, Drum Tower and Dinner

After the exhausting day on the Great Wall, we really needed an easy-going day. We slept in long and didn’t really do anything until lunch time. Then we decided that it would be time to get our clothes washed and went searching for a laundry shop in the neighboring hutongs.

You can find all kinds of small shops everywhere in the hutongs, the only problem is to find them. We had to ask a local who pointed to a shop directly in front of us. The laundry shop looked old and not really clean, but the clothes were spotless and carefully folded when we picked them up the next day.

In the afternoon we went for a quick walk to the Drum and Bell Tower, but those were not that interesting and we walked back through the Hutong. In the evening we had a diner date with Jan and Xiaodan and had great food in a restaurant they choose. That was also the evening we finally had our Beijing Duck 🙂

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 5 – Great Wall

We cannot travel through China without reciting Mao, who said that one is only a man after climbing the Great Wall.

So we did, though not in a very manly fashion, we just arranged a complete tour through Jack, the travel agent who was located in our Hotel 161. A bit of negotiation and we could take Charlotte for free, however with the restriction that we needed to pay for the entrance fee (which turned out to be for free) etc. ourselves and we had to take her on the lap during the ride (we took the risk and were lucky enough that the bus was not full, so not an issue). Easy way to save 268 Yuan.

This meant getting up early – we were still not completely recovered from the jet lag (handy fact, you need about one day per hour time difference, so 6 days for us) – as the tour left at 8 am. So we’re waiting in the lobby and slowly more people are gathering, at the end we were with 3 groups that joined the same tour to Mutianyu Great Wall.

After the bus arrived we drove out of the city and our English speaking tour guide introduced herself. Her name was Cactus J. The explanation was quite interesting, a cactus is a tough and beautiful plant that can survive in harsh places, just like her. OK… As she introduced the program some things were made very clear, and I mean crystal clear like in an army way by almost shouting commands at us. Soon we had a new name for our guide: “Sergeant Cactus”.  So far we had a bit of a strange feeling, paying for this tour and receiving commands by Sergeant Cactus whose favorite sentence was: “Are you clear???”. The foreigners took it easy and made fun of her by all shouting back together: “YES!!!”. Cactus does not have an easy job managing foreign tourists :O).

During a very long ride (we got stuck in traffic jams several times) we did get a good feeling for another Beijing phenomenon, the smog. We could hardly see 200 meters outside of the bus, it was the whole time till the wall like driving through a thick fog. This was definitely not giving hope for good photos if this continues like this. But ok, that’s life :S

Arriving at the Mutianyu Wall we decided to take a different route than advised to ensure we had to walk only a limited length – travel with children is different. So we went up by the cable car to watch tower 14 and walked east towards tower 6, where the so-called Tobbogan was waiting, a slide with which we could return to the parking area. And big surprise, the sky cleared up, we had a sunny day and sometimes even an empty part of the wall for ourselves as not many people went this way. Just let the photos speak for themselves, of course, we had to do the mandatory “jumping on the wall” picture and were also wanted by the Chinese for pictures with them.

The way back down was also definitely a big adventure, the Tobbagan (Sommerrodelbahn) was a steel slide with cars running 2km down to the entrance area and Charlotte and Martijn got a double one. On the way there were several Chinese checking on the track shouting “slow, slow, slow” while Charlotte was more like “Whoooooo, faster daddy, faster”. After we arrived at the bottom we had to wait a bit before mummy came in 😉

After approximaltely 3 hours on the wall the whole group had a common lunch in a restaurant that was not really bad and we got to talk with several of the other participants, one of which lived as a contractor in Nuremberg during the week (he was Czech) – a small world.

After another long drive back – traffic is a bitch in Beijing and I guess everywhere else in China as well – we wanted to go to a so called Korean BBQ restaurant near our hotel. And then the bad mood came in, Charlotte was tired and did not like to eat there, so we had some discussions and then left the restaurant again to search something different – like I wrote, travelling with kids is different :-/

We ended up in this small noodle restaurant where one could pick its own ingredients, they weighted them and then a noodle soup with those ingredients magically appeared from a very small kitchen. Now this was something Charlotte liked and we also had a good meal there… experimenting gives the best results :o)

 

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 4 – Forbidden City

This day was again full of tourist attractions, we visited the forbidden city in the heart of Beijing. First we had to get to the Tiananmen Square, which was also quite interesting due to the sheer size of it and of course due to the fact that you need to pass a security check in order to get onto the square.. something to do with problems in the past I guess.

On the square and in front of the forbidden city, where we had to get our tickets, there were a lot of chinese tourist that wanted to take picture with us. At first that is quite funny, but after a while its getting a bit of a nag. Especially our daughter with her blond hairs got a lot of attention.

Within the compound of the palace it was just again amazing. First, the grounds are just enormous, especially if you imagine that this was all just build for one person. Second, the crowds of Chinese visitors that were all walking the exact same route was also quite a view. As soon as we went about 10 meters off the center way we were seemingly the only ones and it is quite nice to have the feeling that the palace belongs to you 🙂

This day Charlotte also took here own camera and is getting quite fond of “Selfies”.

This time we took the bus back to the hotel and enjoyed a nice coffee in a western oriented cafe on the way, which was well worth it 🙂

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 1 – Arrived physically and mentally in Beijing

After a long flight with not too much sleep we’ve arrived in Beijing well and a quick taxi ride took us to our hotel in the middle of a Hutong. The first day we relaxed, went for water and subway tickets and did a short walk through the Hutong where Charlotte found a nice restaurant for our first Chinese meal. And oh boy, now we know again why we’re here… it is not the smiling Chinese faces all around us (OK, they are not there, Chinese always look suspicious), nor all the cultural heritage here.. it is definitely the amazing food.

Due to the mandatory jetlag Martijn had some time around midnight to photograph the “Beijing Hutong at night” and experiment a bit with the new camera. Below the results

 

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 3 – lazy and silk market

This day was more of a relax day, we slept in quite long and visited the well known silk market. Somehow it was not really anymore what Martijn knew from 2001 and 2011, and a few days later we heard that the goverment closed the old market and reopened it in a more shopping mall style, so no more cheap fake brands.

After that we experienced the Beijing Railway station, where we went to pick up all our train tickets that we booked so far. It was very chaotic but we managed to find the ticket booth and there it all went very fast.

After shopping in the chinese supermarket (very interesting experience) we went to the night food market, where they sell everything from simple sate to fried scorpions or spiders.

Beijing, Sabbatical

Day 2 – Beijing Sightseeing – Temple of Heaven

Second day in Beijing and we’ve visited the Temple of Heaven, one of the highlight here in Beijing. Due to jet lag we slept in quite long, then enjoyed our first real Chinese breakfast with noodle soup and went for sightseeing. But before that we met a young Chinese girl who know also knows a German game. Children can play without oral communication without any issue, thank god

What we experienced in the Tempe of Heaven were three important things. One, sightseeing with Charlotte is going really well, so that is a great thing. We found our mode of operations with her 🙂 Second, all of the known sights are crowded, like really full with tourists, but just a few foreigners as most tourist groups are Chinese visiting their capital city. And third, most important (see photo evidence), never order a Hamburger in China for your Kid and expect something you’ve seen before… Charlotte was very disappointed and decided to stick to Chinese food from now on …

After finishing the tourist part for the day we went towards the subway walking through alleys and suddenly we’re in the middle of a local market. There we found a real Nijntje-eraser, a well known rabbit from Holland and we had to take one with us of course.  That night we all slept well – Beijing is definitely a city where you get to your 10.000 steps a day.