Beijing

In Beijing, we saw many, many famous sights: Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, Houhai area, Beihai Park, and the Olympic Park, to name a few. We couldn't believe how much there was to see! Luckily, the city has a great subway system, so we were able to get everywhere we needed to go pretty quickly (and for about 25 cents/ride). During the first few days of our visit, Beijing was very smoggy, which is why a lot of the pictures of the sights may seem gray. Midway through the week however, there was a rainstorm that cleared the air for the rest of our trip. Thank goodness!

One of the days, we had a chance to meet up with our friend Adil from Calgary who we met while we were traveling in Istanbul. He was visiting his brother who is studying in China, so we made it a point to catch up with him. We had a great day touring some sights with him, and ended up meeting with some of his friends from China and getting a great Beijing duck meal at Quanjude restaurant (a famous duck restaurant established in 1864). That was only one of many delicious meals we had in Beijing - you really can't go wrong no matter what you decide to eat!

Tiananmen Gate:




Mausoleum of Mao Zedong:


Monument to the People's Heroes:


The Forbidden City:






Jesse and Adil on Qianmen street:


Quanjude restaurant:




Bird's Nest and Water Cube:


The Great Wall:
















Dumpling party at our hostel:


At the Lama Temple:


Over here, they just call it "food":


Family dinner: