The Mercedes Plant located in the suburbs is huge: more than 100.000 m2 of assembly lines, stamping, painting, etc. They produce there the C-, E-, and GLK classes. Unfortunately it was not allowed to take pictures inside the plant because I would like to show how neat, tidy and perfect this production plant looks like (did they clean before we came, or do they have such a strict policy?). In any case it really fits to their "motivation to strive for perfection" as they claim.
The bus dropped us at Tian'anmen square, the biggest square in the world. However it is only a flat piece of concrete without any shadow or interesting sights. Only the history of this square is of great interest (but strongly censored by the Chinese government and not searchable on Chinese search engines). The surrounding buildings of the square compromise the Forbidden City, the National Museum and the Hall of People. We went to the Forbidden City, a large scale palace with a long history. It is "the" tourist trap of Beijing I would say, thousands of people were there (but only a handful of Western looking ones). The Forbidden city stretches around 2 km from North to South and around 700 m from East to West. It is quite a walk to see only a few buildings inside of this huge sight! But we soon found out that the interior is not interesting at all and that there is not really a museum-style building there... so you basically can only look at the facades which more or less look the same all the way through the Forbidden City.
On Saturday we visited the Great Wall. It is located in the North of Beijing and really deserves its name. It is very steep since it was built on mountainous areas (or at least at the place that we visited). The wall itself is not really high, but it was enough to protect from angry Mongolians riding on horses. Like in the Forbidden City, there were so many tourists, it was really crowded.
We soon had to learn that it is actually a hiking tour since we did not expect that it would be exhausting to visit a wall :) And unfortunately it took so long to go there by bus and back to the hotel, so it took all day ...
On Sunday we went to the Silk Market and the Pearl Market. The Silk Market it is shopping mall for tourists I would say... There were not many stores that sold silk and everything there was overpriced, even the souvenirs seemed to be precious... and signs on the walls said that we must not bargain with the shop owners (we did not care and still bargained, but did not buy anything at this place).
The Pearl Market was way better. There you can get bags, shoes, trousers and a lot of silk (more than in the Silk Market). Starting prices are much lower there, but still we bargained a lot. You can buy there a really good silk tie for 7 € (or probably even less, if you really want to bargain hard). The market itself is totally messy and too crowded so if you are scared of many people squeezed together in small places, you should go in the early morning to avoid these masses of people.
Yesterday (Monday) we again went to the Pearl Market once more. We split soon, because I wanted to send my postcards and do sightseeing and so I took the metro towards the UIBE university to meet with Olesya and our Chinese tour guide from the University. The tour guide helped Olesya and me to send the postcards from the post office. Afterwards we went together to visit the white pagoda close to the forbidden city and we walked along a lake and through some parks, climbed little hills and took tons of pictures there (the sunlight was perfect). I really had a great day! ... and also we had Beijing duck (such a good dish) in the evening with other friends from Steyr!
Soon, I will be leaving... today it is Tuesday, my last full day here. I can't wait to fly back home, however I really enjoyed this extraordinary trip in to another world!
Enjoy some of the pictures that I took:
On Saturday we visited the Great Wall. It is located in the North of Beijing and really deserves its name. It is very steep since it was built on mountainous areas (or at least at the place that we visited). The wall itself is not really high, but it was enough to protect from angry Mongolians riding on horses. Like in the Forbidden City, there were so many tourists, it was really crowded.
We soon had to learn that it is actually a hiking tour since we did not expect that it would be exhausting to visit a wall :) And unfortunately it took so long to go there by bus and back to the hotel, so it took all day ...
On Sunday we went to the Silk Market and the Pearl Market. The Silk Market it is shopping mall for tourists I would say... There were not many stores that sold silk and everything there was overpriced, even the souvenirs seemed to be precious... and signs on the walls said that we must not bargain with the shop owners (we did not care and still bargained, but did not buy anything at this place).
The Pearl Market was way better. There you can get bags, shoes, trousers and a lot of silk (more than in the Silk Market). Starting prices are much lower there, but still we bargained a lot. You can buy there a really good silk tie for 7 € (or probably even less, if you really want to bargain hard). The market itself is totally messy and too crowded so if you are scared of many people squeezed together in small places, you should go in the early morning to avoid these masses of people.
Yesterday (Monday) we again went to the Pearl Market once more. We split soon, because I wanted to send my postcards and do sightseeing and so I took the metro towards the UIBE university to meet with Olesya and our Chinese tour guide from the University. The tour guide helped Olesya and me to send the postcards from the post office. Afterwards we went together to visit the white pagoda close to the forbidden city and we walked along a lake and through some parks, climbed little hills and took tons of pictures there (the sunlight was perfect). I really had a great day! ... and also we had Beijing duck (such a good dish) in the evening with other friends from Steyr!
Soon, I will be leaving... today it is Tuesday, my last full day here. I can't wait to fly back home, however I really enjoyed this extraordinary trip in to another world!
Enjoy some of the pictures that I took:
Mercedes Benz Plant
Tian'anmen Square
North entrance to the Forbidden City
Beijing Duck (prepared in front of guests)
The Great Wall
People struggling to climb
Masses...
Silk Market
Don't trust these signs...
Pearl Market
Assortment of Chinese food (very fresh and tasty)
A walk through the Park on Monday
White Pagoda
Wish you good luck Olesya, may your wish come true
Forbidden City from top
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