China Trip Day 5 - Ming Tomb, Great Wall of China & Dahon

Good morning Beijing ... looking forward visiting our first local tour in this city.

A simple breakfast of instant noodle and coffee in the room.

This is Helen, our tour guide for the day and by chance. We were supposed to be taken care by a Justin but his car broke down and we agreed to follow Helen's group.

We met 6 Filipinos, 2 Aussie and 1 India Nationality in the group.

Our first destination was Ming Dynasty Tombs 明十三陵 located at the foot of a mountain about 45km away from Beijing city.

The hall of Eminent Favour

Statue of Emperor Yongle, third Ming Emperor during the time between 1360 - 1420

During our school days we have studied about Admiral Cheng Ho or known as Zheng He 鄭和, the great eunuch with 7 famous maritime expeditions reaching as far as Persian Gulf, Red Sea & East African coast and visiting a total of 30 nations between 1405 and 1433, of course he was here in Malacca (Melaka).

A carefully chosen location based on Feng Shui principle by Emperor Yongle who moved the capital from Nanking to Beijing.

The soldiers are like everywhere at most of the tourist attraction areas.

Tradition of walking through the gate upon returning and uttering aloud that we are back. Regrettably we did not see much of the tomb comparing from what I can see from youtube.

One of the itineraries where the tour guide will take us to were shops or factories manufacturing and selling local produce. This time around was a jade making outlet.

Heading northward to the mountain for the Great Wall of China.

Finally we reached Badaling 八達嶺  the section of the wall where Richard Nixon & his wife visited in 1972 the time when we thought we can never visit Communist China.

At the main entrance of Badaling and due the weather condition it was windy, we could not use the cable car to go up.

During this cold season the crowd visiting the Great Wall was lesser, we need not have to take long and zip zap queue to the pulley ride station.

Ultimately we were standing at the Great Wall of China ... one of the 7 wonders of the world.

One of the many watch towers.

The fare for this pulley ride was ¥60 for both way (about 5mins per ride). And we were coming down after seeing what we were supposed to see. It was too cold to stay long up at the Great Wall.

A visit to Dr. Tea, a tea house where they taught us the art of drinking Chinese tea and we ended up buying some back home.

Chinese of Turkish origin selling ground nuts candy. What a yummy candy.

I took out a few printed materials on Dahon and have checked with the concierge on the nearest Dahon store. This one is at Xin Fu Street somewhere at the suburb of Beijing. A telephone call was made and confirmed on the availability of Jifo at and without wasting any further time we took a taxi there.

The store with so many Dahon bikes really made me happy.

 The 16" bicycles ideal for city use.

The 20" Dahon bicycles...so many types so many colours ...what a range of choices.

I paid ¥3,400 for this Jifo and just could not wait to pedal on it.

I met this cycling group at the vicinity of WangFuJing and found out that they ride every Thursday & Saturday.

The name of the group.

A picture with this cycling group in Beijing.