Beijing Roundup

Beijing Beijing...... where do I even start!  Well I'm going to start by saying I LOVE BEIJING! 

Beijing was the first stop on our Asian Adventure trip in 2015!  We were away for 8 weeks and were kicking it off with 5 nights in China's capital city!  By accident we had planned our trip to coincide with the countries biggest bank holiday week "Golden Week" (beginning of October), meaning Beijing was used to having 1 Million tourists a day!  It had a hustle and bustle vibe, full of people, it strangely it didn't feel overwhelming like I had perhaps anticipated.

We had 5 days in Beijing and wanted to see it all. So of course this meant I had a strict itinerary planned...... and typed....... and colour coded 🙈

I will now talk through our itinerary, highlisting our favourites and pointing out some top tips that we found! 

Day 1:  

Arrive and get a taxi into town.  I remember that taxi drive vividly. I was a mixture between an amazed child and one of those happy dogs at the car window with my tough hanging out!!! I just couldn't take my eyes off this city! There was so much to see. A real urban city vibe with pockets of ancient architecture that stood strong and magestic. We arrived at our perfectly centrally located hotel (Hong Wei Yo Jia). Slightly jet lagged even my enthusiasm to explore couldn't persuade the other half to resist a nap.  But a mere 2 hours later we were off........ let's explore Beijing. 

We walked about this amazing city trying to get our bearings.  We had purposely chosen a central hotel so we wouldn't have to tackle public transport when we were fresh into our adventure.  We went to Jingshan Park.  A beautiful oasis in this city. People dancing together, doing Thai Chi and playing Chinese Checkers. Beautiful! 

Day 2:

Today was the day we saw one of the most famous Beijing landmark - Tianmen Square. It was here we got our first taste of Chinese crowds! It was busy, it was loud (sooooo loud - chatting, shouting and just general people noise!) the place was vibrant! 

It was also here we experienced our first photo request..... we would come to learn that this would happen a lot in China.  I mean I felt like Justin Beiber at times #famous #canihaveaselfiewithyou. I think it was a combination between my pasty transparent skin colour and the other halfs bushy beard that gave us the "I've got to get a photo with them look".  It may seem like I am exaggerating but no...... at one point we had people queuing to get pictures with us. It took us 20 minutes to clear the queue! Another day I came back from the toilet to find the other half holding a baby while the parents and grandparents all clapped and took photos! It was bit surreal and amazing at the same time! It was so lovely meeting these people and although there was a massive language barrier we could still have this little communication and interaction together. 

Now as you will come to know, food is my thing. Munch munch munch! And as soon as i knew we were heading to Beijing I thought of one thing.... PEIKING DUCK! Now taking it very seriously I searched the internet for the best place. The results indicated that we should head to Da Dong for a special experience. 

An open fire so you can see how he ducks are prepared and cooked.  The waitresses also show you different accompaniments and ways of eating the duck, from the traditional to very modern! A real treat experience! 

To finish day 2 we went on a free walking tour with Leo (bookable through www.beijingwalking.com). This is one of my MUST DO things in Beijing. Informative, authentic, and a real opportunity to see parts of the city which feel hidden from the tourist books! 

Day 3:

It was day trip time! We decided to book a tour rather than do it ourselves. We were picked up from the hotel and went in search of the Great Wall. We went via the Ming Tombs, Jade Factory and Silk Factory..... which don't really warrant any more chat! Let's go straight to the main event.... the wall! 

Instead of going to the closest location we went a further half hours drive out and went to Mutianyu.  This is another TOP TIP, go the extra distance and go to Mutianyu. It's quieter and less touristy which is a bonus - but this next piece of info will seal the deal....... you get a tabogan down the hill. YES A TABOGAN! 

After returning to the hotel we went out to hit the shopping street of Wangfujing Street to grab some food. We stopped off at Donghuamen Market for an aperitif. The market is another Beijing MUST SEE.  Are you brave enough to grab a tasty bug!? Snake!? No...... maybe a tranlantia then? I went for a little scorpion, which was actually quite nice..... like a salty pork scratching! Mmmmm 😋

Day 4:

It was time for the Forbidden City! What a sight. The pictures speak for themselves! We used the audio gps guides which were quite good and cheap as chips! 

Day 5:

Our last full day in this beautiful city. I was not ready to leave. I felt so comfortable here. We had become well orientated to the city centre and has our favourite hidden gem food haunts.

We spent our last day doing a lot of walking. We did the Temple of Heaven Park and the Summer Palace.

Beijing Food

I can't write a blog post without discussing the food.  Beijing food was amazing. My top tips would be, go off the beaten track and go somewhere that doesn't have English menus. Go somewhere and take a stab in the dark or point to something! Restaurants in Hutongs were cheap, fresh and tasty!  A couple of times we went to fancier restaurants but I found the smaller, independent cafes were just better! 

The steamed dumplings were my favourite. We usually had these for brunch! Fresh straight out the steamer and they didn't last long the way we wolfed them down!

We went for a Hot Pot one night. I think we made a mistake and went for the plain water one that you are basically boiling the meat and veg in plain water. We later found out you could get spicy broths..... if only we had known! 

Although we only ate Chinese food, and all manner of weird and wonderful foods that felt alien, every so often things pop up that remind you of home........

Hope you enjoyed this post and as ever please leave a comment and share your own experiences! Let's get the conversation started x

How to... plan a big trip - choosing your destinations

You catch the travel bug..... your feet are itchy and you want to get planning.... but the world is your oyster so where should you go? 

This is a tricky question, I don't know about you but my "wish list" is huge. So many places I want to see, so many things I want to do. So how do you chose you destinations and start to put together an itinerary for a big trip!?

This is a dilemma we were faced with a couple of years ago now.  I was one year into a doctorate degree and already thinking about how we could celebrate its completion. I would be starting work after this, in a new post, which meant I could be flexible with my start date. This presented a rare opportunity which doesn't happen often in "adult life", the opportunity to go away for more than two weeks! We decided we were going to do this..... "a trip of a life time" this was going to be the gap year I never had...... albeit a gap 8 weeks!!! So where where where!?? 

For us, the answer to this question lay in one single photo! I follow This Amazing World of Ours on Facebook! They are a page which share stunning photos of places, animals and general world beauty! These photos are mine blowing, I would seriously encourage you to check them out! I mean you see photos of places are you're immediately like "ok world, I'm coming to get you". You will never go on a two week resort holiday again after you see some of the amazing sights out there! Well on this particular day a photo came up of "Heavan's Gate" which is in Tianmen Mounrain National Park in Jangjiajie, China! Of course I can't find THE actually photo now..... course I can't!!!!! But it was like this.......  But with brighter colours and more light shining down from heaven! We saw this an went "WE NEED TO GO HERE!"

And that was our starting point, and that is step one....... 

Step 1: Find your starting point

Find something that ignites the passion, that ramps up the excitement! That place that triggers off the plans, that spurs on the momento! Boom, the cogs are turning.

Step 2: If it's a trip of a life time, then make it so

Our step two was all about googling and finding out "must sees". We were searching things like "must see places before you die", "most amazing travel sights", "destinations not to be missed".... you get the picture. We googled and googled and googled! Anytime we saw somewhere amazing, we copied pictures and details to a word document! This helped to build up a list of amazing places, beautiful sights and special destinations!

Step 3: Organise that chaos

So if your anything like us that word document will soon be chaos. A jumble of pictures and text that goodness knows how long! Time to organise it. First of all by county then by city. Cluster things together. You will then start to get a sense of potential destination and where these may be clustered! 

For us it quickly became clear that we were going to Asia! Yeah..... we had narrowed it down from the world to a continent! #achievement 

Step 4: Have I missed anything?

Re-googling with your new narrower criteria (e.g "must see sights in Asia", "top places to go in Asia", "stunning sights in Asia") will help make sure you've not missed anything!

Step 5: Traffic Light it!!!!

Ok so this is when stuff gets fun! We bought a map of Asia and sheets of coloured dot stickers! We then used a "traffic light stystem" to categorise he sights.

Green = Must see - non-negotiable.... we need to go there 

Amber = This would be great to see if possible

Red = if we are in the area we will check it out, but we won't go out our way.

Then categorise each location and put a corresponding colour sticker onto the map at the location of that activity/sight. Once you are done you will have one very spotty map - but this should give you a visual illustration of where those green dot sights are - we found that a route naturally emerged from this, and voila we had our plan!

Do you have any other top tips for destination planning? Would love to hear them, Bx

Welcome!!!

A big welcome and hello to my brand new blog! A place where I will share stories of my travels.  That makes it sound so grand doesn't it?!  Like I am a well seasoned explorer who is jet setting left right and center.  Now sadly that just isnt the case. Neither am I an 18 year old bright eyed and bushy tailed youth about to embarked on a coming of age gap year where I will leave the motherland for the first time in search of all the world has to hold.  So what am I????? Well, as boring as it sounds I'm a 30 sometime year old lass who works a Monday to Friday 9-5 job, but lives for adventure.  I am all about  spending my allocated annual leave wisely and having opportunities to explore, travel and experience as much as I can each holiday!  So come with me as I try to satisfy my travel passion with city breaks, beach holidays and cultured adventures! Whether I'm blogging while away on holiday , or blogging the planning and researching of my next escape! Let's make this interactive - so please please leave comments, travel tips or share your own experiences!  Cheers :) B