National Holiday in Beijing

First tip for Beijing during the National Day Holidays- whatever you do, do not go to major tourist attractions. This is something that would’ve been nice to have heard on our two day trip to Beijing. But alas, we did not get this small suggestion, and that is why we spent the two days swarmed by Chinese tourists at both Tiananmen Square and The Summer Palace. 

With a week off from university classes, Matt, Weng (from Wollongong) Jakob (from Austria) and myself decided to begin our time in Beijing for two days before meeting with the group headed for Inner Mongolia. We left on Sunday morning to Beijing on the bullet train, arriving at our hotel in Wudoukou at around mid-day. Deciding we had no time to lose, we dropped our luggage and hopped aboard the subway headed for Tiananmen Square. We were greeted by massive crowds of people, and a beautiful, hot sunny day. 

The tourists were equally as interested in us as they were with the attractions that surrounded them. Being handed a baby, I attempted to keep it still as the parents quickly snapped off some “look, we found a westerner and are going to add her to our family album” photos. Before I knew it, the baby got a firm grip of my upper arm and began to pinch me. With a face of disbelief, it tightened its grip just to check that I was in fact a person. All the while its stoic facial expression remained. When I let out a cry of pain it released slightly. I had obviously passed the test. 

We walked through the beginning of The Forbidden City, but decided that the large crowds of people were perhaps just a little too daunting for one day after having battled the masses in the square. Instead, we sought out some food and retreated to our hotel for the night.

Monday was the official National Day, and perhaps the busiest day of the year for tourist attractions. Covering an expanse of 2.9 square kilometres, we figured the Summer Palace was a safe place to hide. Also named the ‘Gardens of Nurtured Harmony’, it was the perfect place to spend a day that sat at about 26 degrees with wall to wall sunshine. 

We spent the day hiking to the tops of the mountains, climbing trees (and momentarily getting stuck) and the boys even swam with the locals in the seaweed infested lake. The park itself was serene and peaceful, despite the massive crowds that the palace drew in. We finished our stay in Beijing with a traditional dinner of Peking duck- a delicious way to finish the two days before we headed onto the next part of our holiday.