Beijing – Hutong, Olympic Park & Acrobat Show

Monday 7th August 2017
Well it is our last day so we decided to go out with a bang.

After a slow start and late breakfast we packed up and headed out at 10.45am as after we check out we have no home and we don’t fly out until 11.45 tonight.

As we have been having difficulty getting taxis the short 3km distances to the tourist attractions we decided we would give the subway a go. This was very successful. We caught a total of 8 subways today. All only 3CNY each. So our travel on the subways cost us a total of 24CNY ($5) each today. It was great. They were very frequent and efficient. They are also clean and quiet. The process is seamless to ensure quick transport of millions of people each day. You go through security screening at every station and the ticket scanner works in a 300th of a millisecond.First stop was a walk around the hutongs. This was a walk through the old back alleys, there are a mixture of very old dilapidated housing and more modern and mansions. There is also a shopping strip for the tourists. It was an interesting walk. It ended with a stop in a park near the Bell Tower where we met a teacher and some summer camp students. The teacher used us to practice his English. He was previously an English tour guide so he spoke very well. We also spoke to a couple of the children. They were on Summer Camp from Guilin. After this we caught a couple more subways to the Olympic Park where we saw the Birds Nest and Aquatic Cube. It was very hot. Then we caught another 2 subways to our last show at the Chaoyang Theatre. It was an Acrobatic Show with some incredible talents. Then another 2 subways back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head to the airport. Our taxi was ery cheap to the airport only 100CNY ($20).

We are now at the airport waiting for our flight which was due to depart at 11.45pm. Looks like we won’t be leaving now until 1.40am. We are very weary and are looking forward to boarding as soon as possible. Time to go home for a rest.

It has been a great holiday, it was lovely to see Benny, watch him perform and show Colleen another culture. We really experienced a lot of new things and I am sure she enjoyed herself as much as me.

See you back in Australia soon. XXX.