Episode 204 - The Palace

This photo was taken outside the Palace Museum at Beijing.

The Forbidden City is always packing with people, making it difficult to take a good photo of this lovely architecture.

I discovered this wonderful location after leaving the back gate of the palace. It is at the back corner of the palace near the Wangfujing. On that day, I saw a lot of tourists sitting on the bench at the river side, enjoying this beautiful spot of the palace.

Episode 203 - The Mutianyu Great Wall

My family had a short holiday at Beijing recently.

In 2005, Gogo and I visited the Great Wall at Badaling of Beijing. This time we went to see that part of the Great Wall at Mutianyu.

Like Badaling, Mutianyu is situated outside the city and we had to hire a car to it.

The Mutianyu site appears not to be one promoted for popular visit as the car parks there were not designed for parking big limousines. Local tourism promotion leaflets were mostly for tours to the Badaling.

The runways of the Mutianyu Great Wall appear to be narrower (and steeper) than those in the the Badaling - hence not suitable for a large number of tourists.

Purely on the design and its setting against the mountains nearby, I prefer the Badaling Great Wall to the Mutianyu Great Wall. However, the Badaling is always packed with tourists which would greatly reduce the enjoyment of the journey. From the latter perspective, I prefer the Mutianyu Great Wall to the Badaling Great Wall.

Visitors can use the passage path leading to the wall on the top of the mountain to reach the runway of the wall. Alternatively, they can use the cable cars, which was our choice.