We took an early flight to our last destination for this trip- Beijing. We stayed at Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel, which was comfortable and in a nice location near the subway, but a bit expensive- we paid 350 yuan per person for a double room.
Our rating for Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel is 8 out of 10.
There are many things to do in Beijing. we only had 3 days cause our trip was so short, but if you have more time it’s best to spend 5 days in Beijing.
In the afternoon we walked to Zhongshan Park.
We had the name of the park in Chinese but we didn’t really know how to get there. We asked a Chinese couple that walked in the opposite direction if they know where the park is. Suddenly they told us to follow them, which was a bit weird since they were in the opposite direction, but we followed them. After 15 minutes of walking we arrived at the park entrance, realizing how kind these Chinese were, walking us all the way to the park and change their plans. This is only one of many experiences we had with Chinese that were so friendly and helpful to us even when they barely speak English. They would do the best they can to help you out and this is very inspiring. The Zhongshan Park is a very peaceful and nice place to visit.
Zhongshan Park
morning exercise in Beijing
The next morning we took the subway to the Summer Palace and traveled there for a few hours. This is a very impressive place and I felt like we could stay there for a full day. In the afternoon we took the subway to the Temple Of Heaven, which was nice bus not so impressive in our opinion. Later on we entered the Pearl Market for some shopping.
Summer Palace- you can easily spend some hours here
Summer Palace
Temple Of Heaven
awesome fruit
Last day of this trip. We woke up early in order to spend half a day at The Great Wall and then a few more hours of shopping. The tour to The Great Wall through the hostel was quite expensive and we wanted to come back early so we went independently. All you need is to ask someone in the hostel to write you down some words in Chinese and English: the fast 916 bus, the name of the bus stop you need to get off, and the name of the part of the wall which you want to visit- we chose Mutianyu.
From the hostel we took the subway to Dongzhimen station. From there we took the bus and then took a shared taxi to the entrance of the great wall. We traveled on the wall for 2 hours. The wall is impressive, but we felt it wasn’t such a wow like all the nature and beautiful scenery we saw around China, maybe in spring time it is prettier. the best thing about the great wall was the very cool 1.5 km slide down.
We drove back to do some shopping at the Pearl Market. ( read more about Shopping in Beijing: BEST TIPS)
Our rating for Beijing is 8 out of 10.
The Great Wall
The Great Wall- go independently(=
At night we took the flight back home to Israel and had a connection of 10 hours at Kiev, so we went out to travel for a full nice day in Kiev. Arriving back home was great because we missed our families.
This first trip to China was so powerful and mind-blowing, I know at the moment we got back home, that we must listen to our hearts and keep on doing the thing that makes us so happy and enthusiastic- travelling around the world.
