Beijing – construction
The Beijing skyline is filled with cranes.
Panoramic photos of Beijing sights
I’ve been taking pictures of my stay in Beijing – I’ve added the pictures from Laurence too.
In addition I am creating some panoramic shots stitching together many pictures to make a panorama.
The panorama is great for trying to give some feeling of the scale of the sights.
Here is Mao’s Mausoleum from a couple of pictures:
And here are a couple of pictures from the Forbidden City – still these pictures don’t give the vastness of the scale:
[For the record – I am using Hugin to create the pictures – it is free and opensource.]
Beijing stories – continued…
I am here in Beijing with Laurence – a colleague from the UK.
Yesterday we did the unthinkable – and booked ourselves on an organised tour to the Great Wall.
First stop – the Ming Tombs – about 50km North West of Beijing itself.
As you can see it was drizzling and foggy.
Next stop – after lunch and shopping – was the Great Wall at Ba Da Ling itself.
We drove for just a few minutes and from nowhere Tolkeinesque mountains started to loom up through the mist. Very impressive.
We arrived and the snow started falling. I wanted to get a geocache – so we took the less travelled and much much steeper southern part of the wall.
As you can see – almost whiteout conditions.
The climb up was just slippery; going down was part farce, part winter sport. I’ll post a video of that later!
Here is a view during the summer to show the difference:
Finally – back into a very very wet Beijing for the evening.
We decided to avoid the local delicacies on sale in the hutong – pictures of those soon – but it was a festival – so fireworks, firecrackers – and kids with sparklers.
Beijing stories
I’m in Beijing with Laurence – a friend from work in the UK.
I spent the morning in the local Novell office – great views; mainly of construction:
We were taken out to lunch by the project team from Novell – to a local tofu restuarant. Tofu served in ways I’d never seen it before. Even as a dessert.
This evening we took a taxi to Tiananmen Square – and walked around. It truly is immense. We were accosted by dozens of people selling kites, Mao watches, books of Mao Quotations – and people just wanting to talk and speak English.
We then went wandering, found a restuarant, and using a combination of pointing and my month old mandarin skills – we ordered Peking Duck, rice and beer. I even managed to ask for a receipt and get the taxi driver back to our hotel.
Travelling to Beijing
I’ve just arrived in Beijing after a day of travelling. I left home before dawn for a 6am flight to San Francisco, then flew to Beijing.
The flight was uneventful; immigration stressfree.
First impressions of Beijing? It’s raining, foggy and construction is everywhere.
Tomorrow I will be in the local Novell office, more updates then.
Off to China
Tomorrow morning I’m heading off early for a week in Beijing, China. It’s the first time for me; and to be honest the first time I’ve travelled anywhere where I really don’t have any ability to speak some basic local language and read my way around.
I downloaded a Rapid Mandarin course by Earworms from Audible – and I at least know some phrases. (Well – it’s another language I can order beer and coffee in ..)
Hopefully internet won’t be too shoddy during the week – I’ll be there with Laurence so I’ll make sure we post some pics.
Recent Comments