Five Days in Beijing: Part 4 - Summer Palace and Tea House Performance

We awoke to very misty weather on our second full day in Beijing. Despite the mist, we decided that we would head to the UNESCO listed Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was first built in 1750 and is a collection of halls, pavilions and temples gathered around a large man-made lake called Kunming Lake. The ground are dominated by Longevity Hill, which is more than 60 metres high and which was made from all the earth that was excavated to make the lake. The palace is popular with tourists but is also a public recreational park so there were plenty of ordinary Beijing citizens there enjoying the sights. 

Decorative gate (known as a 'paifang') at the entrance to the main Summer Palace grounds.

Five Days in Beijing: Part 3 - Forbidden City and Exotic Food Market

After a morning of trekking around the Panjiayuan Antiques Market and a brief visit to Tianamen Square we found ourselves in front of the Forbidden City and decided that we should go in and see what all the fuss was about. 

The Forbidden City, viewed from Jingshan Hill to the north. (photo care of Wikipedia)

Five Days in Beijing: Part 2 - Panjiayuan Antiques Market and Tiananmen Square

We made an early start on our first full day in Beijing. The weather was vastly improved, warm and sunny an our plan was to do some serious sightseeing! We jumped on the subway and travelled to East Beijing for our first stop of the day, Panjiayuan Antiques Market. This popular flea market, also known as 'Dirt Market' apparently, has been going strong since 1992 and receives thousands of visitors every day, both locals and tourists. It's the place to go if you're looking for souvenirs and there are even some genuine antiques mixed in with the fakes and reproductions too! 

Panjiayuan Antiques Market on a busy Sunday morning.

Five Days in Beijing: Part 1 - Hutongs and decadent beer

So way back in the first half of September 2011, we were packing our bags once again to go on another quick overseas jaunt. It was the Chuseok vacation, Korea's Thanksgiving/Harvest festival style holiday and we had Monday - Wednesday off work. Koreans usually visit their relatives in their home-towns during this or ancestors nearby to visit we decided to take our 5 days of freedom and go explore another country. Last year we visited Japan for Chuseok, this year we decided it was time to go check out China, specifically Beijing. 

As usual, all the prices for travel were hiked up for the festive season and plane and train tickets were sold out way in advance. Travelling during Chuseok is like travelling during Christmas back home and can be a real nightmare if you don't plan it well. But as this was our second year of Chuseok madness we knew what to expect. 

The two faces of the Korean Chuseok holiday - 1. Songpyeon. They are rice cake dumplings filled with honey or beans and steamed with pine needles to add a nice scent that are traditionally eaten during Chuseok. (photo from http://parsonsesl3.wordpress.com/)

Japan! Take Two: Kyoto - Trains and bamboo groves

On our third day in Kyoto we got a bit tired of the heat of the city so we decided to head out to Arashiyama, a small town just outside of Kyoto. To get there we caught a train from the impressive central Kyoto train station. It was a lot more peaceful and relaxed out in Arashiyama than in the manic central Kyoto sights. After strolling through the main tower areas we headed out to one of the most famous sights in Arashiyama, the bamboo grove at Tenryu-ji temple. The temple was really nice, beautiful gardens and ponds. The bamboo groves themselves were a little disappointing as they didn't quite live up to the lonely planet hype. the grove was very pleasant but it wasn't as big as we expected and it also had a track running through it with cars driving through! In the temple grounds itself we saw some lovely dragonflies and a water snake slithering through a stream.

The impressive main hall of Kyoto central train station showing the overhead walk way in the center of the picture at the top. 

Definitely a bit more peaceful and relaxed out here!

The train bridge from Kyoto crossing the river with mountains in the background.

Japan Take Two: Kyoto, temples galore!

Day two in Kyoto and we made sure we got an early start to avoid the heat as we were heading out to some of the most popular temples in Kyoto, the confusingly similarly named Ginkaku and Kinkaku temples. Ginkajku temple was built as a retreat for shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa in 1482 to get away from the hubbub of the civil war, after his death it was converted into a Buddhist temple. Ginkaku has stunning gardens including white sand piled up to represent mount Fuji, raked gravel zen gardens and mossy woodlands. The woodlands provided perfect shade from the sun so they were very pleasant and relaxing to stroll around.  

Raked rows of sand in Ginkaju temple grounds

The carefully smoothed pile of sand is supposed to represent mount Fuji, it was being maintained by a guy with a watering can and plastering board.

Japan Take Two: Kyoto, stepping into history.

So we stepped off the bullet train and into history as we arrived at the ancient capital of Japan and probably it's most beautiful city, Kyoto. Our train journey there wasn't quite as exciting and picturesque as we'd hoped and we didn't manage to catch any glimpses of Mt Fuji out of the window. We puzzled our way through the Kyoto bus system and eventually managed to make our way up to our hostel, which was much bigger and more modern than our Tokyo digs. After eating a quick dinner we decided to take a short walk around Gion, the old pleasure district close to where we were staying. It was really beautiful, lots of narrow little alleys and tea houses all lit with beautiful paper and silk lanterns.

Paper lanterns