Beijing - Day 1, 2 and 3

Depending on your time of arrival to Beijing, after you figured the way to your hotel/guest house and settled in, you should start your trip. If you arrived in the evening don’t start sightseeing, it’s better not to go asleep to early so you’ll adapt to your new environment and try exploring your surroundings, where can you eat, buy stuff, catch a cab/bus and change some money.  I always bother the reception agents in my hotel with these questions, they usually speak English, have to be nice to you and give you a free map.

Day 1 – The Forbidden City

Start point:   08:30 – arrive at Mao’s Mausoleum at Tian’an Men Square - see his casket raised from its refrigerated chamber.  It says everywhere to come early to beat the crowds. But it doesn’t say when (So try to ask at your hotel). This sounds kind of morbid but interesting.

B point:        Head north on Tian’an Men Square towards Chang’an Jie street, cross it and head to the building in front of you with Mao’s portrait on it – Tian’an Men. Climb and see views from the gallery.

C point:        Head again strait north towards the highlight of the day – The Forbidden City. From what I checked there’s entrance fees and guided tours. If that’s true I’d recommend checking out the guided tour only if it’s done by a live person and not some headphones.  Spend your day getting lost in this compound and taking lots of pics.

Lunch point:  You’ll probably eat a very late lunch or early dinner this day. From what I read there’s an excellent food court in the basement of the Oriental plaza mall. This sounds like a great way to end the first day, by eating and getting some shopping done at the same time.

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Day 2 – The Summer Palace

For our second day we’ll take a break from the center of the city and visit it’s green landscapes.

Beijing has more than a few parks, the one that seems really gorjess, is the Summer Palace. Best way to get there, I think, is by taxi, to the East Palace Gate (which is supposed to be the main entrance).

ETA by Taxi from center – 30 min (Point B).

This is a huge compound and will take you a few hours to explore, try to get here early, again 08:30 should be a smart choice.

Here’s from what I read, the best way to see and enjoy this park:

Start point: East palace gate -> walk along the Long corridor -> get to Longevity hill -> descend and continue towards the Marble boat -> cruise by boat to South lake island -> off the boat, cross the Seventeen arch bridge -> exit the park from same gate.

By the time you get back you probably worked up quite an appetite. I suggest exiting the park, catching a cab and going to Fragrant Hills Park (Xiang Shan). Why not see another amazing park that’s just 20 min away (Point C).

Before entering the east gate of the park, there should be a Sculpting in Time Café nearby, this is a famous café franchise in Beijing, it’s suppose to be really good. Get your lunch here and then enter the park, spend the rest of your day here until you had enough or it closes. Note that the park has admission fees witch not include fees to use the cable car.

Start point: Enter the east gate -> and go right to the Bright temple (Zhao Temple) -> near it you continue to the Glazed pagoda (Liuli) -> go north pass the bridge that runs through the Spectacles lakes -> get on the Cable car to the top of the hill -> walk down until arriving at the Fragrant hills hotel -> exit again through the east gate.

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Day 3 – Temple of Heaven

Yesterday we had quite a tiring day, as we basically tracked trough “Green Beijing”. So today we’ll try to take it easy.

We’ll start the morning (again early to avoid the crowds, say 08:30) walking around the Temple of Heaven. Best to enter the park through the East Gate (Point A).

This is supposed to be quite a big complex, but this time we’ll mainly focus on the main temple which is the Hall of Prayer. This place is from the Ming dynasty and known by being the place that the emperor would make sacrifices and pray at, also this is one of the most famous Chinese temples.

In the evening, around sunset go to Wanfujing street (Point B), to see and eat at the Night Market.

In-between, after leaving the temple and before going to the market take the day to explore the option of buying your first plane ticket out of Beijing (for the day after if possible). Try to find a flight to Louyang for your next destination.

China - Overview

Every other day I change my mind about what will be my next destination, at this point in time China is my new obsession (I can never explain why).

When it comes to China, after studding the subject, you’ll realize that it’s more of a continent than a country, so you need to treat it as such.

You really need to focus your attention on a region or a specific place you’d wanna start from.

Some people wanna just do the basics, hop to Beijing then to Hong Kong and then decide what fancy them more in the region and go from there. Of course it all depends on your budget, your interests and the time you have at your disposal.

I like to look at a map before I go anywhere, and check what would be the best way to… well… “attack” a destination.

Here’s a map of China:



Here’s the thing, Beijing and Hong Kong are very far apart, I rarely like to spread around too much, I like to concentrate on one region at a time.

From looking at a map of China ,there’s no way (unless you have like a few months at your disposal) to see everything.

I rather take it apart, and try to squeeze in as much as I can, one region at a time.

I’m gonna start with Beijing and the following regions: Hebei, Tianjin, Shanxi, Shandong & Henan.


As you can see from the map, these are the regions surrounding Beijing and they’ll be the easiest and the fastest to visit on a trip starting in Beijing.

My plan is to fly internationally, in and out of Beijing. So my trip will start and end in the same place.

So let's start the day planning :)

Introduction

For years now I've been obsessed with travel, I've loved everything about it (maybe that's the Sagittarius in me, who knows...).

I was always a great navigator even though I'm a girl and could find any place anywhere in the world by just using a map (I'm meen without GPS). So maps became my friends, and used to have quite a lot of them in my car.

I hated asking for directions to a new location "just give me the address" became my motto and that was followed by "...you'll see, I'll get there, don't worry". I used to love seeing people's faces when I got there in a flash.

My love for navigating only increased when I discovered my obsession with travel.

My parents are to blame for this when they decided to take me with them for my 12th birthday on my first trip abroad. They were using a different kind of map, "travel guides".

Guess what... I was in love!

How can you explain an obsession, well mine is only by seeing my library of travel books, mostly of places I haven't been to yet and still dying to go to.

Through the years I joined my parents every year on their annual trip till I was 18, that's when I first experienced this on my own, when me and a friend from high school planed our first trip to after high school.

Planning vacations by locations and maps became my thing and now I'm the one planning my parents’ trips.

The reason I'm starting a blog now is mainly selfish, I need a paperless forum to plan trips and keep feeding my obsession, and secondly people always ask for my help in this matter so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone :)

I hope I'll be able to do this, we'll see how it goes, basically what I'm gonna do is try to show different travel locations in the world and how I "attack" them, this is the time to say that I take no responsibility for any place I mention and any root or decision. 

This is how I'd plan a trip before I've been there, using maps and travel books. So take that in mind. Also I have no idea if anyone else is doing something similar on the web but it's worth a try... :)