Sunday in Beijing

Today was our final day in Beijing.    We started a little later this morning.   As usual we had our wonderful breakfast buffet that is included with the room.   We have enjoyed an Asian soup each day, some crapes, eggs any way you want them, smoked salmon, french toast etc.

Our tours today started at Jiang Shan Park.  I have seen this park from a distance but never been able to go there.  This park looks down on the South gate of the Forbidden city.  It is about 50 meters higher than the Forbidden city so we climbed a number of stairs.

When we arrived we saw a lady doing Calligraphy with water on the ground, this is such an art and it just evaporates away.

We hiked up the hill all the way hearing all this singing. We soon learned that various groups of people gather in the park to sing.  Today they were mostly singing patriotic songs it was so cool to see and hear.

We then walked back down to see a group doing jump rope in the park.

From here we headed to the Hutong (Narrow Alley).  This is an old section of Beijing where in the past life was still a lot like the old days.   This visit was a disappointment, the traffic was so bad, the crowds on the street were terrible.  We had a traffic jam of rickshaws, the ride took so long and was so boring.   As part of this you normally visit a home in the village.  We went to the home but they were not expecting us due to some scheduling issues so we saw the living room and heard about life there.  We got to talk to some birds.   In the past I have been a huge fan of this area but would not go back based on today.

This put us a bit behind schedule so we were not able to grab lunch where we had planned but had some fast food dumplings that were great.

Then off to the airport.   Our guide Jeremy was running through the airport getting us taken care of.  We got concerned about making our flight and Jeremy cut lines and got us to the front.  Security was a pain as usual for Beijing.  They took every item out of my computer / camera bag, this was a royal pain!  I have to say that the Beijing airport is by far my least favorite airport of all time.  They always tear my camera bag apart.

We ran toward our gate and got there just in time to board our flight.

So now we are in Nanchang where we will meet Hannah.    We had issues on the hotel but that will be taken care of tomorrow. The room was rather small and not fit for 5 of us to share.  They are upgrading us in the morning (Than you Esther)

We meet Hannah at 4pm China time Monday so about 3 am at home.

Stay tuned for photos of us with her tomorrow.