Trip of a Lifetime Round 2 (China Part 1: The Great Wall, Tianamen Square and, The Forbidden City)

Well as the title of this post indicates, I am officially back on the road! I flew from San Francisco to Beijing, China via Hong Kong on May 12th and have officially begun the second go around of my trip.

I started off the trip with a major bang. The first site I decided to visit was the Great Wall of China. This monument is truly as impressive, if not more so, than any of you can imagine. Instead of going to the main section dedicated for tourists, I decided to go a to a section that has not been as restored and is much more "real and original." This turned out to be the best decision I could have ever made. I started at a point called Jinshanling and ended at a point called Simantai. The whole section was 6.5 miles long and consisted of 30 watchtowers as well as the wall! Not only was this section almost completely void of tourists, it was situated in the mountains and while extremely steep at points, the views were unreal. The fog decided to hang around the day that I went so at times, I was literally climbing the wall into the mist. It was truly a site that I will absolutely NEVER forget.

The next day, I headed to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. For those of you who do not know what these are here is a brief description: Tiananmen Square is the largest public square in the world and is home to many buildings dedicated to Chairman Mao (who basically brought communism to China.) It even houses a building that holds the mummified remains of the Chairman himself! The Forbidden City is adjacent to Tiananmen Square and is the largest concentration of historical and restored buildings in all of China. It got its name because it was "off limits" to outsiders for 500 years.

The Square was amazing and came complete with massive Chinese flags, army soldiers, and INSANE amounts of Chinese citizens who travel from far and wide to pay their respects to the Chairman. The Forbidden City was also quite a sight. It stretches for what seems like miles and has many "traditional" Chinese buildings that have been beautifully restored. These buildings include former residences, banquet halls, and entertainment complexes of former Emperors. Both sites were unreal!

The Sites that I have seen so far have been impressive, but some of the foods that I have seen on the street have been down right INSANE. Now I am sure that all of you have heard rumors of "interesting" things that are eaten China and let me be the first to tell you, THEY ARE ALL TRUE! While walking around the streets of Beijing in search of food, I came into contact with stalls selling things including: (and I am NOT joking about this,) fried scorpion, dog meat, chicken kidneys, chicken hearts, shark, starfish, and basically any other entrails that you can come up with. I decided to stick with the Chicken Kebabs which I think was a safe thing to do.
Well that's all for now but be sure to check back over the next few days to see the pictures from the first set of adventures as well as the next post!
Until Next Time,
Evan