China Travel No.2 - Beijing Sightseeing

I visited a lot of the famous places, like the Forbidden City, the Olympic Stadium and park, the Tian’anmen –square and the Temple of Heaven. I had two very nice Chinese families show me around the sights and together we managed the heat and explored the huge grounds of the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven. Both areas are very vast and surrounded by gardens, filled with lots of temples and palaces and big tourist masses as well. Sometimes just crossing a street took half an hour and you were surrounded by people from all sides. I often felt like I was standing in the first row at a rock concert. Sorry for the picture overload, but it was so hard to choose!!

My favorite place was by far the Temple of Heaven. The buildings are so beautiful, well preserved and you can almost feel the aura of ancient history surrounding you. I was a bit of a tourist attraction myself at all those places mentioned above and especially at the Temple. People just stared at me because of my height, my light skin color and who knows what other reasons. Most of them just stared, but some actually took pictures without even asking, which made me a little uncomfortable. Some actually did ask, but if you give one the chance, all of them will want a picture. It was a little overwhelming at times, but often I managed to just blend it out.

One of the biggest highlights was of course seeing the Great Wall. The Chinese don’t actually see it as such an important sight. The old palaces in Beijing are much more important culturally, but still, they were happy to take me there in any case.