Silk Route

Day 04 - Wed 19 Mar 08

Beijing

Up at 08:00 for the breakfast buffet for 35Y, pigged out and ate loads, then off to the metro and then a taxi to get to the Summer Palace. On the way drove past the Birds Nest stadium that's going to be the centre piece of next years Olympics - it's looking good!

At the Summer Palace the weather is cool, so I'm glad of my fleece and coat, made it onto the 16 arch bridge that leads onto and island on the lake. Then took a ferry over to the Marble Boat which is a boat that doesn't float, and isn't made out of marble...

Summer Palace Ticket

There's also a mock up of a 'typical south china street', which is a bit too clean, and has a few too many shops selling tourist junk. The gardens in the place are very nice and spent a few hours wandering through them. Shopped off at a shop and purchased a huge pot noodle for lunch.

Then it was back in a taxi to find the Birds Nest stadium, because it's still being built getting near it is tricky. The taxi driver drops us on a motorway fly over. Walked down the slip road and managed to get a couple of photos. Then it was another taxi back to the metro and down to the Temple of Heaven via a KFC (well, there has been a lot of walking today!)

Park Ticket

It was dusk by the time we got down to the Temple of Heaven so it had already shut, but that was okay as we had the place to ourselves. Walked around the walls, took some photos and headed out of the surrounding park as it was getting dark. Another taxi back to the hotel to chill out - felt very sleepy, but headed out again at 21:00 to get some food. Drove along way across Beijing past a shopping centre that projects video of whales onto the roof. After a bit of stress with the taxi driver we found the restaurant we were looking for and had a great meal - Lemon Chicken Yummy!

Back to the hotel to plan the next part of this trip, and bed at 02:00!