Spring Festival in Shenyang

This year the Chinese New Year of Ox began on 26^th of January. In Shenyang you could hear firecrackers every evening one week before that event. At my husbands home everybody was cleaning and preparing all the food and decorations such as red lanterns, papercuts and red signs with short poems which are hung around the door. Also outside you could and still can feel holiday atmosphere. In almost every window there are red lanterns and flashing lights. More over it was snowing a couple of days before so snow covered everything. I almost felt like on Christmas Day.

At the New Years Eve we had family reunion dinner in our grandparents place. At midnight we ate dumplings, drank and enjoyed family atmosphere in front of TV. In TV program there were songs about China and even Chinese astronauts said wishes for New Year which was funny but hey nobody cares as we have New Year!

Before midnight we went outside to let off some firecrackers like many people at that time. I must say that we polluted the whole area in front of our building but the fun we had you cannot compare to anything.

Also at midnight my husband and I had to bow to elder family members and give money as a present to children. There is a funny thing about giving and receiving money as you cannot accept that kind of present and on the other hand you have to insist on giving it. In general the whole family members scream at each other and in the end you give it and somebody has to take it:)

Now we will celebrate New Year of the ox for another 15 days. Guo nian hao 过年好 everybody!!!

Zoo in Beijing

Another thing that I wanted always see in China is the Giant Panda so Beijing Zoo was on our list.

The Giant Panda (dàxióngmāo, in my translation: big bear cat) is a mammal classified in the bear family, native to central-western and southwestern China.

It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. And of course everybody knows that it eats mostly bamboo.

When I first saw this amazing creature I felt so happy. After a while I felt sad that this beautiful animal is endangered and it can disappear from planet even though scientists work hard not to let that happen.

The Giant Panda lives only in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.

In recent decades the Giant Panda is a national symbol for the country. Chinese government sends Pandas to other countries like Japan as a sign of friendship etc. Even in last Olympic Games one of the mascots represented Panda.

Temple of Heaven in Beijing

As we were staying in Beijing we wanted to visit many famous places. Unfortunately we had to choose few only among loads of sites which are worth to see over there. We picked The Temple of Heaven (天坛). In order to get there we took a subway from our hotel. We often took a subway in Beijing as there is huge traffic.

This complex of Taoist buildings was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.

In order to get to the Temple of Heaven the ticket needs to be bought. More over to see all buildings in the complex 3 tickets are required or one, more expensive, for all the places there.

Anyway the Temple consists of three main groups of constructions and it is surrounded by a park. In this beautiful park there are a lot of people hanging out. It is so nice to see people despite of their age exercising, dancing or playing Jiànzi 毽子 (kicking shuttlecock - picture on the right). I have never seen that in Poland or Ireland on that scale:)

The Temple of Heaven from the North side

The main building is The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (祈年殿). It is a circular building, built on three levels of marble stone base, where the Emperor prayed for good harvests. The building is completely wooden, with no nails. It is very impressive. It looked for me like floating in the air.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests

The Imperial Vault of Heaven (皇穹宇) is surrounded by a smooth circular wall, the Echo Wall, that can transmit sounds over large distances. We checked that and it really works. You can hear clearly a person from the opposite part of the wall. It was very exciting!

The Echo Wall in the background

Forbidden City in Beijing

The Forbidden City in Beijing was the most impressing site I have ever seen in my life. It is vast and beautiful, and well preserved. I am not surprised that Emperors lived there. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dyansty. It was the home of the Emperor and his household and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.

The palace which was built in XV century covers 720,000 square meters. It is surrounded by high city wall and a wide moat. The wall is pierced by gates on each side. To the south, there is the most famous gate called Tiananmen Gate, which is decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in the centre and two placards to the left and right: "Long Live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". The Tiananmen Gate connects the Forbidden City precinct with well-known Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen Sq in Beijing

We began our visiting from the Tiananmen Sq like many other tourists. We passed many gates, halls and even gardens inside the museum. Many of them names I don’t remember but there is a handy way to know them all when you are over there. You can rent a small device, a guide, for only 40 Yuen. They have this guide even in Polish which was a huge surprise for me.

Anyway, if you want to see ALL in there prepare yourself to spend all day on this visit. We had been there only a half day and we had to choose places where we want to go. For example I really wanted to see an exhibition of terracotta soldiers in one of the halls as I don’t know when I will go to Xi’an so after all we selected only few halls to go into. We skipped some of paintings exhibitions.

Forbidden City in Beijing

Inside the Forbidden City

I loved the Imperial Garden over there very much. It was small but it consisted of various landscaping elements (trees, rocks, water etc). It was a very relaxing place although there were many people.

The other thing that will always remind me of The Forbidden City is the roof decoration on the roof ridge. The more creatures on the roof the highest status of the building is like on the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Very beautiful creatures they are;)

Imperial Garden in the Firbidden City

Roof decorations in the background

The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. One of them is Beihai Park on the north-west side which is centered on a lake. We planned to go there after visiting the Forbidden City but we changed our mind and took tricycle in order to see Mongolian Hutong area of the city where Genghis Khan used to live.

Beihai Park

The Great Wall of China

In front of Badaling sector of the Great Wall

After one day staying in Beijing we were asked by many people on the streets if we want to go for a trip to see The Great Wall. I was prepared to pay around 150 Yuen per person for that pleasure as I checked on internet at home but since there is winter we were able to get tickets for a hundred Yuen per person. I thought that we were so lucky but later on we found out that some Chinese people from the same trip paid 50 Yuen per person. This annoyed me a lot all the time we stayed in Beijing!! People cheat on everything but I wasn’t going to write about it here…
As everybody knows The Great Wall of China (长城; Chángchéng) is a series of stone and earthen fortifications built many centuries ago in order to protect Chinese Empire from attacks.



We visited the Great Wall at Badaling 八达岭 (Eight Prominent Peaks) sector, located at Yanqing County 70 km northwest of Beijing. It is the first section of the Great Wall to be opened to tourists. It was built in 1571 and was repaired in 1957. It is considered the best preserved wall construction. The section is about 5 km long with 19 watchtowers. There were many shops and sellers around which made the place commercialized. And I must say that sellers in there were like flies. You hardly could get rid of them. All of them want you to buy souvenirs over there. We climbed the left part of the Badaling wall which is steeper but gives a better scenery of the wall. Going down was even harder than going up. I will never forget that feeling when I was up there. We took many weird and funny pictures there:) It was amazing. I wish that all parts of The Great Wall were preserved as good as Badaling wall.

My warrior at the Great Wall

And a princess itself on a camel..

Trip to Beijing

Everybody knows Beijing so I don’t have to write an introduction about it :)

Main goals of our trip to Beijing were getting visa to Poland, climbing Great Wall, seeing Panda and visiting Forbidden City and we had to do all those things in one week. All went well.

We took a train from Shenyang to Beijing in the night so we could save one night in Beijing hotels and ticket was much cheaper than for fast train during the day. Of course I couldn’t sleep for almost all the time we were on the train and I couldn’t move anywhere as we had bought top beds in a compartment so I played games on my phone to kill the time. Anyway I survived. The next day I was very tired but fortunately on that day we planed applying for polish visa only so it wasn’t so bad after all.

Apart from the Great Wall, Pandas and Forbidden City we had a chance to see The Temple of Heaven, Hutong areas, the Bird Nest and the Water Cube in Beijing which I will describe with my own words in new posts later.

In general trip to Beijing was OK but I was happy leaving this city after one week. The city is too big!!! Streets have no ends and local people are not friendly at all. I think it is great for tourists not for living. Well, that is my humble opinion…

Jilin City

Jilin City (吉林市) is located in Jilin Province in North of China. It is famous of its big rime ice on the trees around the Songhua River. The rime ice is a natural phenomenon that occurs every year during January and February.

Unfortunately we haven't seen the rime ice there as we didn't go in the morning to the banks of the river. I think I would freeze to death if I did that! More than - 20 degrees. No thanks!

As the matter of fact I don’t know how I managed to go out for our little trips there. It was so cold! And now we are planning to go to Harbin after Chinese New Year which is more in the North than Jilin and I don’t know how will I survive;) but of course I want to see famous ice sculptures there. Well, I think it is worth. Don’t you think?

By the river in Jilin (my nose is about to fell off)

In Jilin City we visited North Hill Park (Bei Shan) and Dragon Pool Mountain Park.

There is a legend about the Dragon Pool that Dragon was catched by the Monk and chained to the Pool. When a dragon comes back to the land there will be flood.

In front of gate to Bei Shan

Temple on Bei Shan

Dragon Pool in Jilin