Beijing and the Great Wall

Lizzy and I took the high-speed bullet train from Xi'an to Beijing and it was fabulous.  We were able to take in the countryside as we whizzed along the track with a top speed of about 315 km/h or 195mph!!!

After taking the subway from the high-speed rail station, we found ourselves unable to snag a taxi to our friends Evan and G.P.'s apartment and decided to cram into a tuk-tuk, a motorized rickshaw.

Lizzy and I sandwiched into the back of the tuk-tuk! 
Our fearless tuk-tuk driver
Being in Beijing reminded me of how much I adore large cities.  The Beijing subway system was easy to navigate and you can beat paying between 2-4CNY ($0.32 - $0.65) for a one-way ticket!


The main thing I liked about Beijing was wandering through the Hutongs.  A hutong is an old neighborhood, created by a series of alleyways lined with traditional residences.  Many hutongs have been torn down in order to build more modern structures.  Recently, several have been designated as protected areas, a necessary step to preserve these pieces of Chinese History.

Exploring the Houhai area in Beijing

Beijing was a special part of the journey as May 18 was Graduation Day.  Both Lizzy and I completed M.Ed's in Curriculum and Instruction along with Montana Teaching Licenses.  We spent the day visiting Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Square
We decided not to hire any guides for this day but I highly recommend a guide for the Forbidden City as it was huge and confusing to navigate!


Crowds of people heading to the Forbidden City

Forbidden City - hire a guide and do NOT go on the weekend
The main reason for visiting Beijing was to hike the Great Wall.  We hired a driver, Tom, based on another personal recommendation.

Great Wall
We chose to hike Jinshanling, a section of the Great Wall located about 2 hours from Beijing.  Amit, a friend we met in Chengdu joined up with us for the day.

Tower on the Great Wall
Tom dropped us off, helped us buy our tickets (50CNY or $8.09 if I remember correctly) and then drove to another spot to wait for us.  We would only be able to hike 6km or 3.7miles since the Simitai portion of the wall was closed for construction.

Lizzy and Natalie, Great Wall
Tom told us it would take about 2-3 hours to complete the hike.  Since we happened to choose the most picture perfect day on record, it took us 4!!!

Great Wall

In addition to the perfect day, parts of the Great Wall were extremely steep and treacherous.  It was slow-going among the crumbling stone!

Great Wall
After visiting the Great Wall, Tom happily drove us by the famous Bird's Nest (Beijing National Stadium) on the way home!

Lizzy, Amit, & Natalie in front of the Bird's Nest
The Bird's Nest was built for the 2008 Olympics.  You can also visit and swim in the Water Cube (Beijing National Aquatics Center), just like Michael Phelps!


Travel tips:


  • Make sure you ask if you can use your student ID for admission discounts, your guides can help with translation (The Great Wall only accepted Chinese student IDs but many places did accept ours and saved us a great deal of cash)
  • Tom was a great driver.  If you'd like to hire him, please email me at natalie.ann.rich@gmail.com and I can pass his information along.  He can also recommend guiding services.
  • The Bird's Nest is also fun to visit at night when it is lit up!

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