Beijing, China

We made it to Beijing. The first thing on my mind when we got off Air China Airlines was how HOT the weather was there. I could hardly breathe through my nose. Well, we were tired of being outside, so we hurried and called a taxi to take us to our hotel. When we checked into our room, it was like walking into heaven. The hotel room was cold, with the air conditioning on. It felt so good that soon, both Chad and I fell asleep on the beds. We slept through the afternoon and woke up at around 7 o’clock. We went downstairs to the hotel restaurant and ordered many Chinese dishes, including the infamous Peking duck. It was so delicious, definitely not something you can taste everyday. After the delicious dinner, we decided to go back to our rooms and get ready for bed again. We were so full we could fall asleep anywhere.

The next day, we went to visit the Forbidden City. The City was the largest and best-preserved imperial palace in the world. Chad and I spent a lot of the day looking into the rooms and taking pictures. It was a beautiful sight. All the furnishings were still inside. I also heard there are 9,999 rooms in this magnificent palace. We then went out for lunch at a noodle resturant. I had a beef noodle, while Chad had a vegetarian one. It was absolutely delicious. Maybe it was the fact that we were so hungry, walking all day and looking into the many spectacular rooms of the palace.

On the last day of our stay in Beijing, we went to visit the Great Wall of China. When we arrived at the beginning of the wall, we stood in wonder, staring at how long the wall actually is. Good thing we had our running shoes on, for we were in for a day of workout. We walked with a lot of other tourists along the Wall. It was so tiring because it was so hot and there were so many people together, which certainly didn’t make the heat any better. We kept walking and taking pictures or each other. I was so sweaty and so tired that I could just collapse. But Chad told me there’s something special at the end of the Wall. So I kept going, while holding onto her arm. She was right. At the end of the long climb, there were medals given to people who actually finished from the start to finish. We bought some souvenirs and went back to our hotel to pack for our trip to Vietnam.