Beijing was a BIG surprise! – Beijing, China Travel Blog
别梦成灰
We took the Bullet Train from Shanghai to Beijing on Day 4, we left Shanghai at 2025 and travelled all night. We were in a softe sleeper car, meaning we were in a stateroom with 4 beds in it. Angie and each had a lower berth and a husband and wife had the upper berths. Neither spoke English so it was quiet; actually they hardly spoke to each other much less us. It seems the Chinese are very respectful and don’t intrude when they don’t know you.
I have some video clips of the of the train ride from early the morning of the 5th day, I won’t bore you with lots of clips of trees speeding by the window. Our average spped was over 150 MPH so the countryside flew by. We arrived in Beijing in the rain but it didn’t last too long. This city is different from Shanghai in that Shanghai is a new, vibrant city that is considered by many as the financial capital of the world. It is undergoing a face lift of staggering porpartions! There is construction everywhere 
. Many older parts of the city are being torn down and new buildings are being built.
There is little to no smog rigtht now. In the early morning and late afterneoon when the cars are travelling to and from work there is a noticable cloud but when the rush to and from work is over the cloud is gone, much like Anchorage. I was surprised!
Our hotel is the Days Inn Forbidden City Hotel. It is nice, clean, off the main road and take our airport, Anchorage International and triple the size and give it 6 or 8 stories on top of what is there now you might come close to guessing the size of the station! It is BIG, and I do mean BIG! There are more people getting on and off the train in Beijing than travel through SeaTac
Airport or O’Hare International Airport on any given day. It was amazing. The fire doors that are in place in this new station looki like the dorrs you see in the banks that are on the vaults except they are huge! It gave me the feeling of being in a bunker or some3 sort of fortification. Made me wonder what the rest if Beijing would look like.
Well, the City is not what I expected, there had been rain and the sun was trying to come out. The air was clean and the sky was still overcast. It was much like a sauna even though it it was just after 0700 in the morning.
As we drove to the hotel I was shocked at how modern this city really is. They are building new buildings everyday. The overall skyscape wasn’t as immense as Shanghai’s skyscape but it is still impressive 
. There are tall buildings everywhere, some completed some still in various stages of construction. The architecture is stunning. The cookie cutter buildings I have seen in the US are not the norm. They have created beautiful buildings with form and style that is interesting and pleasing to the eye. Some even make me scratch my head because the are so very different and it is a wonder they stand up.
There are still very poor parts of town but most are under in the middoe of being cleaned up and renewed. The governnent is making an effort to rid the city of the hovels that have been the norm for so many years. Large areas are nothing but piles of rubble, but construction of new homes very evident.
After cleaning up at the hotel we headed to the infamous Tiananmen Square where the 1989 massacre took place. It was a little creepy at first walking on the same ground where the student protesters died standing up for what they believed in. It is a beautiful place now, the People’s Hall is there, Mao is entombed there, the Forbidden City Gate is just acrosse the street.
We ventured into the Forbidden City and the pomp and glory of Old China became a reality to me. It was breathtakingly beautiful! The Emporer’s of China lived in such splendor. The Forbidden City gives the traveller there a small hlimpse into a past filled with pomp and ceremon ywe just see on the movie screen. This is truly a beautiful place, and I am sure that if you could be allowed to be there alone, not with a million people milling around looking at everything there was to see, like me, one would be able to hear the voices of the people who lived there 
.
I have included a map of Tianamen Square, a video of part of the train ride, and photos from the Forbidden City. There are also a few photos from the CCTV Tower. It is the old TV signal/studio tower, the newp and the photos are some of the panarama one will be shown later. We were able to go to the floor that was 350 meters up. The photos are just some of the Beijing panorama. I will include some photos from the Pearl TV tower in Shanghai a little later in a separate blog.
More later, we are off to the Market area of town a rickshaw ride
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