Hotel breakfasts, for me, are one of the life’s simple pleasures. Having time to just sit and enjoy a long lazy breakfast is such a joy. So it is too at The Orchid. Just deciding exactly what to eat is also a difficult decision to make, but whatever your decision, the food is simply wonderful. Take a look at their menu and choose…
Today, our third in Beijing, is Forbidden City day, our route already planned, on foot, passing a couple of nearby lakes taking us to Jingshan Park to view the Forbidden City in it’s entirety before actually joining the crowds flooding through its gates. As is the norm in Chinese parks, we paid to get in to this small but nicely planted park and despite the confusing signs finally made it up the rather steep steps to the temple on the top of the hill where we were then totally amazed at the site that met our eyes. Despite the haze, which appears to be pretty much permanent in Beijing, we could see the huge Forbidden City set out before us.
Out of the park we fought through the swarms of people exiting the Forbidden City and also hoards of taxi touts surrounding the exit hassling for business and we walked around to the front of the huge walled city, where a one way in, one way out system is on operation from Tiananmen Square. Security here is very obviously tight and very thorough in its checking but once through the queue we stood amazed to be actually in Tiananmen Square, an image we’d seen on our TV screens all through our childhood and recently with events involving a tank and a very small man. We were actually stood right in the middle of the square with Chairman Mao gazing over us. Quite overwhelming.
Hoards of baseball cap wearing Chinese tourists, snaking and shoving their way past whatever it was in front of them, swarmed in to the Forbidden City; we joined the human flow passing through it’s massive gates. Sadly though, the crowds are quite overwhelming and to be honest, the place is pretty much just an empty shell with very little to see apart from a few selected museums and courtyards with most of the artefacts having been safely removed. As a building and as an historical relic, it was vast and wondrous and gave just a small glimpse of what old Peking and ancient China must have been like. But as a tourist site, it was in our opinion, very poor indeed.
Walking a little further than we expected, we caught the Metro back to the Orchid and exited the Metro Station via the wrong exit. We managed to stroll through a small park where locals had hung their caged birds which were singing gloriously. Some birds were way too large for their pretty ornate, but too small cages. A very sad sight for us Westerners, but they did sound delightful hung in this narrow green strip along the side of a dual carriageway in the middle of smoggy Beijing .
After a rest from what turned out to be quite a mornings walk we once again hoofed it out in to the evening, strolling back to the nearby Houhai Lake, lined on almost it’s entire shoreline by brightly lit bars and restaurants all with house bands, all looking strangely identical, all sounding strangely similar and all blaring music out in to the illuminated night at a deafening level filling the air with a dreadful mash of noise.
After strolling around the lake we failed to find a quiet place to have a drink, gave up and walked back to The Orchid, passing a small paved park between the Bell Tower and its nearby Drum Tower neighbour. Here, locals enjoyed the rare open space and several groups of people were dancing to music from portable speakers hooked up to car batteries and MP3 players. We watched for a while, noticing similar moves to the modern jive that we enjoy at home. Waiting for a suitable track and plucking up courage, we joined in being warmly applauded after the dance by the locals. A great moment to share our love of dancing. So, danced out and elated we then enjoyed a beer and a coffee in the hotel lounge chatting with our fellow guests all discussing our day in Beijing.
mrandmrsyoung 