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| BEIJING HYDE COURTYARD HOTEL |
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| BUDDHA IN THE BEIJING HYDE |
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| RUBI BY WAR MEMORIAL IN TIAN'ANMEN SQUARE |
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| TIAN'ANMEN GATE |
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| THE FORBIDDEN CITY FROM JINSHANG PARK |
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| BOATS IN BEIHAI PARK |
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| BUDDHIST PAGODA IN BEIHAI PARK |
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| LAOSHE TEAHOUSE IN BEIJING |
Our journey to Beijing started on Good Friday and involved a short flight with British Airways from Heathrow to Tegel, Berlin, where we transferred onto a much longer overnight flight with Chinese airline Hainan. We landed at Beijing Airport early afternoon Saturday. I knew we were getting close when I saw a section of the Great Wall from the aircraft window. Other than that, the journey was uneventful save for having to join a long queue to get through what seemed a surprisingly inefficient airport security system at Tegel.
Beijing's weather was warm and sunny, and we quickly found our budget accommodation at the Beijing Hyde Courtyard Hotel so that we could leave our bags and reconnoitre the local area.
It was only a short walk from the Hotel to Tian'anmen Square but getting into it proved more difficult than anticipated. There were barriers around the Square with only limited entry points, and at these we were expected to put our bags through x-ray scanners. Police were visible everywhere, as were smartly dressed but unsmiling soldiers and very obvious plain-clothes security officers.
Indeed, the security presence was pervasive throughout this central, most touristy, part of Beijing. We walked through the square, then crossed over the road and walked over the bridge to Tian'anmen Gate, over which the image of Chairman Mao is displayed. Walking through took us to Meridian Gate, the south gate of the Forbidden City, which the Chinese now name the rather less catchy Palace Museum. We will visit here later on during our stay.
There is an obvious one-way system for visitors to these places, and security officers prevented us from retracing our steps to Tian'anmen Square. Instead, we continued in a large loop to the east side of the city centre which enabled us to visit the impressive Beijing Railway Station and collect the pre-ordered railway tickets which we would require later on in our tour.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was dark and we were tired. Our en-suite hotel room was small but adequate, and to get to it we passed by an imposing statue of the Buddha.
We were out of the hotel by about 8.00am the following morning. It was Sunday; the crowds were out and the weather was glorious. Once again we headed for Tian'anmen Square, this time for a proper exploration. We looked at the magnificent Zhengyangmen Gate, the war memorial and, along with many other people, undertook the rather morbid ritual of filing past the body of Chairman Mao preserved in a glass case housed in his personal mausoleum. He died in 1976, but many Chinese people laid flowers before a statue of him, showing that his presence is still deeply felt.
We continued on an anti-clockwise route around the Forbidden City, initially to climb up to the summer house on the hill in Jingshan Park, from where we could enjoy an elevated view of the area all around. We listened to Chinese musicians singing and playing traditional music on the way down.
Lunch was enjoyed in Beihai Park where we watched the boats on the lake before climbing up to the Buddhist Pagoda built to honour the 5th Dalai Lama who visited in 1651. We then continued along the west side of the Forbidden City, through Zhongshan Park where we visited the statue of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, before getting back to our starting point at Qianmen.
Our final visit of the day was to the Laoshe Tea House, as famous for its sponsorship of cultural activities such as music, dance and opera, as it is for its tea. Two large statues of George W Bush being greeted by the Tearoom's founder Yin Shengxi adorn the entrance foyer. We enjoyed a gratis tea tasting session served by a girl who spoke Cantonese, so Rubi had plenty to chat about.
It was only 7.30pm when we got back to our hotel, but Rubi was exhausted, having not slept well the previous night, and was asleep almost as soon as she entered the room. Just as well as we would be setting off early in the morning to walk a section of the Great Wall.