Last day

Today is going to be my last day in Beijing.
I'm leaving this beautiful city this afternoon to go to Xi'an. I'm going by train and it's going to take 12 hours to get there.



Yesterday I went to the Temple of Heaven park and made a little video on the activities Chinese people do when they go to a park.
If someone know what's the name of the ball game they're playing at the end of the video, please tell me!




I don't know when I'll be able to write here again so see you soon (I hope) :)

To my sweet Chloé: I love you and miss you so much.

Behai Park

Yesterday, I spent the day in two beautiful parks: the Behai park and the Jingshan park.



Both parks are located just behind the forbidden city.
The Behai park is the bigger of the two and seems to be a mini-sized version of the Summer Palace.
To ensure me lots of happiness this year I rang three times the bell present in the Yong'an shrine.

While I was visiting the Behai park I stumbled upon a guy who was doing water calligraphy with a big pencil. The (chinese) audience was watching him draw the characters with attention. Apparently, what the guy was saying was very interesting. They were even laughing at some times, just because the guy had added a dot or a line somewhere...



I was really frustrated not to be able to understand a single word of his speech...

Summer palace

Today I went to the summer palace. The summer palace is the place where the emperors and empresses went every time they got bored by the life within the Forbidden City.



The summer palace is very similar to the Forbidden city except that it's BIGGER and in the forest... You can see one part of the map here.

I spent the whole day in the palace and...
I don't know how I can put it... it was so beautiful... so huge. When you're in the palace it really seems there's just no end of it. Even far far far away you can see the forest and some temples...



But well, maybe the video will make you understand, even thought it is very far from the real experience:

The Great Wall

So today was the Great Wall Day.


The week-end is the time you don't want to visit anything famous in Beijing because its way too crowded with tourists. But the remaining of the week is the time you don't want to take the Taxi in Beijing...
I didn't thought about it and so spent a good part of the morning into the traffic jam. But in the end it was my lucky day as once I arrived in the Dongzhimen Road Station, I met with 2 great people (Claire and Sven) that also wanted to go to Simatai.
The Simatai site is an alternative to the much touristic areas (thus much crowded) of Badaling and Mutianyu. Simatai is located at 120 kilometers on North-East of Beijing.


So the three of us took a car that drove us directly to Simatai and waited for us to return.
Simatai is really a beautiful site to see the Great Wall, as the Wall here hasn't got many renovations and is therefore very authentic: some parts of it are no longer standing at all.
Unfortunately we didn't go very far because my fellow partners for this trip had a train to take. But well, once you're on the Wall, you have to decide to stop at a point because there's just no end :P

And since a video is better that any words, here it is:


See you!

A Sunday in Beijing

First: happy 1st April to everyone reading this. According to 晓苑, in China this day is called "愚人节" and it has same signification as for us, western people :P

So today I began with the Panjiayuan Market. I spent the whole morning there and bought some souvenirs for those of you left in Paris :)

Then I went to the White Cloud Temple. Yes, yet another Taoist temple... But I prefer the Toaoists temple to the Buddhists ones.
And in this one there was a little entertainment:



For 10 Yuan you could buy 50 coppers coins and try to hit the bell with those. It was very enjoyable, while visiting the temple, to hear from afar the sound of the coins hitting the bell or the big plate around it. It really adds up to the already relaxing atmosphere of a Taoist temple.

I went next to the Lama temple. This temple is commonly referred as The Buddhist Temple You Absolutely Have to Visit in Beijing as this is temple where the Dalaï Lama goes every time he comes to Beijing. But I think that the most interesting thing about this temple was that the entry ticket is actually a CD Rom.
Beyond that, nothing special. Yet it's a very big and beautiful temple but I didn't feel the same atmosphere I felt when visiting the previous Taoist temples. I think this is mostly due to the fact there were way to many people. This, and that I'm not fond of the Buddhist folklore.

At last, I went behind the Forbidden City and enjoyed a *great* view on both the Jingshan and the Beihai parks.

At last, a little surprise:


PS: 王鑫, I'm really sorry to have forgotten your name on the list. I'm going to correct this right now :)

First days in Beijing

As this blog is now also viewed by non-french readers, I'll write entries in English from now on. This is also a good way to improve my written English level...
So, sorry Mom and Dad, you'll need a little extra effort to follow me on my journey in China :)

I left Tianjin on a very cloudy Friday midday.
Getting to Beijing from Tianjin was not so simple as I'd thought it to be. I managed to get to the correct railway station by taxi but that was the easy part.
Because there was no single "Railway station" building but many, and in each building there were many places to buy tickets from. There were also tickets you could buy outside. Worse, nothing - at all - was written in English.
There was people everywhere, fast pacing, with their luggages, going from one building to another.

After staring a moment at this complete chaos, I understood that there was a specific building to get a one-way ticket and another to get a return ticket. For what destination, that was another question...
In this mess, while I was trying to find the correct building to buy the ticket from, many drivers were offering me to drive me to Beijing, so I just selected the cheapest. It was almost the same price as the train ticket anyway and with that I got a confortable place in a nice car that drived me from Tianjin to Beijing and left me not far from my hotel.



As it was too late to visit anything, I went to the Tian'Anmen square to see how big it really is. And it *really* IS big.
And to add to the charm there were many kites in the sky.





Today (staturday) morning, since it was the week end, I decided to avoid visiting places like the Tian'Anmen surroundings, the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace.


Instead, I walked a little in the town, passing by some hutongs, and went to the Dongyue temple, also known as the Folk Museum. As for every temple, it was a very peaceful place, where the only sounds were caused by small wooden plates and small bells that bumped in each others as the wind was blowing.
I also enjoyed a great Chinese traditional toys exhibition in the museum.


I visited next the Poly Art Museum where the SUPINFO student card granted me a free ticket :) This museum consists mainly on the exhibition of China ancient bronze treasures from the ancient Shang dynasty (1700 BC) to the Tang one (900 AD).
It was very interesting to see the transformation of the written characters in the bronze. At first (the Shang dynasty), they are just little drawings of an object or an activity. Then, as time goes by, they become more and more complex to finally obtain the shape of the current Chinese characters.




Next I walked a little bit in the city, discovering more hutongs, followed the vestige of the Ming wall at Chongwenmen and stopped by the South-Est Corner Tower.
It was then time to rest :)