Beijing, China

I was in China 2 weeks ago.  It's my 5th time in the country but first time in Beijing. The first 4 times were for work in Shanghai, while this is all for leisure.=)  Em is close to finishing her graduate studies in China so Papang and Mommy took this opportunity to visit her.  I was the willing chaperone.


I will post separately on the places we visited but here's a rundown of our itinerary.  The first 2.5 days were supposed to be the compulsory tours but our guide was able to compress everything to 2 days.  The rest of our all-Filipino tour group wanted to go to the zoo on Day 3 but we had this planned for a later date so we opted out.

Day 1
Arrived 1AM of Day 1, tour started 9AM
Tiananmen Square
Forbidden City/Palace Museum
Lunch
Temple of Heaven
Tea House
Wangfujing Street
Acrobatics Show
Dinner

Day 2
Jade Factory 1
Great Wall at Joyungguan
Jade Factory 2 + Lunch
Chinese Herbal Center
Silk Factory
Olympic Park
Dinner - Shabu shabu

Day 3
Transferred to another hotel
Botanical Garden
Dinner at Bao Yuan

Day 4
Beijing Zoo
Shopping
Dinner at Em's friends house

 Day 5
798 Arts District

I booked our tickets during one of Cebu Pacific's seat sale and it cost ~P8k per person round trip.  Tour and visa were arranged through Our Restless Feet, which cost P11k for 2.5 days of tour.  I highly recommend them.

Quick review of Beijing on this tour:
Positive: Lots of trees, efficient and cheap transpo (train at 2 yuan only, bus even less), cheap shopping, inexpensive and healthy food, the attractions, Mary our tour guide =)
Negative: Coooold, lots of walking, language barrier (need more English translation), unpredictable public toilets, stinky tofu, pollen.

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