Over Easter me and mom visited my day care buddy Juliana and Elleina in Beijing China. We had so much fun spending the weekend and weekday evenings together. Mom packed our days to visit lots of interesting places. Despite thousands of tourists in some attractions mom wasn’t complaining as 99% of the tourists were from China, what is the difference? They come from different parts of China and they dress in their traditional clothing which looks spectacular and since they love taking pictures with me (I will tell you more about it) mom had great opportunity to take pictures of them.
I was the only western kid we saw and we had to implement a system for visiting busy places. If we stopped for a few minutes crowds surrounded me to take pictures, touch my face, my head, or give me hugs or lift me up. Mom had to be very assertive plus we tried to avoid stopping while walking. There was nothing wrong with taking a picture if asked but touching ????;(
In general people were very happy, smiley and loud.
We spent a few days driving outside of Beijing. We saw amazing Guyaju an ancient rock dwelling, Cuandixia Villiage, Longqing Gorge, and of course the Great Wall of China.
We managed a painless visit( after the second attempt) to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Summer Palace.
Mom couldn’t resist going to the Flea Market were she showed me her bargaining skills, then the Silk Market with all the famous knockoffs and last but not least the Night Food Market were we didn’t eat anything after seeing live scorpions on sticks to snack on.
One of the favourite parts of Beijing was the 789 Art District. Mom was blown away. I managed to take a jewellery class there while mom was wandering around. We will be back to spend at a least few days at 789.
Special thanks to our guide David for showing us secret China. Pictures are taken by mom, me and David.
I enjoyed reading about your trip very much Ginger. I loved the photos. It sounded like a wonderful experience and i want to go to the art festival in Beijing now. You are the luckiest girl in the world!