Beijing China has Blue Skies....Who Knew?

JUst Kicking It in China

So on my adventures I decided to add China to the list of countries I explore this year. So I thought a quick 5 days in Beijing and surrounding areas sounded great. So a few of the Just Kicking It  crew were ready, but there was a problem. We had been told by many people that Beijing was "kak" (means crap). Apparently it's just not a pleasant place to visit and worst of all, there is no such thing as blue skies, just smoke, smog and siff air. It was a tough decided, but in the end we thought, why not, let's go to Beijing, eat duck look at a wall and let's take in some good old fashioned smog, lets go see Tienanmen square the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Beijing night food market (Wangfujing Shopping Street) and just some other Chinesey places.

Ahh but we were tricked! There was no smog in Beijing! What is this devilry we thought, we have been robbed of our Chinese can't breathe experience. Now we were forced to look at the ancient amazing city in all this beautiful blue....sometimes you just can't win. So off we went to explore, meet some locals and take some shameless selfies. You can witness all of the greatness below.

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square

Tienanmen square



Forbidden City

Forbidden City

Forbidden City

Forbidden City



Below is one of the coolest things that we saw while in Beijing. The night food market in Wangfujing Shopping Street. It was not at all what I expected. I had heard of course that there were seahorses, spiders, scorpions and all that jazz, but I had also heard it was dirty. So naturally you build this picture up in your mind and prepare yourself for battle. What a surprise I got. When we arrived it was so clean, so professional and in reality there were very little locals that ate all these exotic things, rather it was the foreigners (including ourselves) who got in on the action. So take a look at all the delicious treats that you could eat, it was really amazing and I am glad that I got to see it.



















If you thinking of taking a trip to China, then I would definitely recommend Beijing, that Ancient city has stood the test of time, and although the people in general are not the most friendly, you can find that a smile goes a long way, getting lost is actually really fun and riding the wrong way down a highway in a steel box can be exhilarating.  

2 comments:

  1. I keep fighting myself about going to China. On one hand, it's cool and new, it's China, it's historical and interesting (and apparently has blue skies!), but then I don't feel comfortable handing in $125 visa fees to the Chinese government as they make life hell for NKorean refugees and try to destroy Tibetan culture/kill people who protest.

    But I didn't make it there before my ARC was down to below 6 months, so I guess that made my decision for me... haha. But really jealous of that market experience, right now.

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    1. Good thing I am from South Africa and didnt have to hand them any of those fees haha

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