Nic Trips

We returned to our hostel late that evening from our trip to the wall. As we started scouting out some dinner (which would end up consisting of tomato and egg soup with fried noodles), we decided to walk from our hostel all the way down to the Forbidden City in hopes of seeing the gate lit up at night. We were not disappointed. Although freezing, and we could barely stand to remove our hands from our gloves for more than a few seconds to snap some pictures, it was well worth the long walk. The following morning, we got an early start to the day, leaving our hostel at nearly 9 am. Our plan was to see as many things as possible, starting with the National Museum of China. To our dismay, however, we found that almost all of the popular tourist destinations in Beijing are  closed  on Mondays. Although the city itself was closed on Monday, the tourists are allowed to enter the front gate, called Tiananmen, which is the monumental entrance to the city that we saw lit up th...

The biggest reason I planned my winter vacation trip to Beijing, China (to a place even colder than Korea), was because I wanted to cross off one of the things on my top 3 places I wanted to see most in the world: The Pyramids of Giza (Egpyt) Machu Picchu (Peru) The Great Wall of China  -  CHECK! We had a big decision ahead of us when choosing which tour to the great wall to do. There are several sections open to tourist in Beijing, and some are more famous than others. Badaling and Mutianyu are the most visited because they are the most restored and closest to the city (only an hour away). We ended up choosing Jinshanling, for a few reasons. Much of Jinshanling has been restored (like the other well known sections), but not as much as Badaling and Mutianyu, meaning we got to see a few sections of the wall that look original: old and crumbling. Also, Jinshanling is very far away from the city. It's normally about a 3 hour drive, so it attracts much few tourists. O...