We took a high speed train (300 km/hour) from Beijing to Shanghai early Thursday morning. I was surprised by how clean and smooth the train was considering we were in economy class. The first thing I noticed when stepping off the train was the pollution. I never thought that I would be able to feel the pollution but I was definitely wrong. After dropping our bags at the Pentahotel (which was pretty nice and modern), we went to Wangfujing Night Market, a street food paradise. I tried starfish, scorpion, and a sugar coated strawberry. They all tasted pretty awful but it was part of the experience! That night we ate dinner at Da Dong, a world famous Peking duck restaurant. I have had Peking duck many times before and this duck was some of the best I have ever had.
The next morning we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The security in Tiananmen Square was very tight and we even witnessed a potential act of protest (which was shut down immediately). The Forbidden City was massive and took a few hours to walk through the entire area. For lunch, we ate at an interesting Buddhist restaurant which was essentially vegan.
On Saturday, we visited the Temple of Heaven and the park that surrounded it. In the park, there were many elderly people exercising and playing an awesome hacky sack/shuttlecock game. We later went to Houhai, a lake area, to have lunch and then to shop at Nanluoguxiang. We also visited the bell towers and climbed up very steep stairs to the top of the tower for a great view of Beijing.
On our final day in China we started off by traveling to the Great Wall (Mutianyu Section). This was probably the highlight of the entire trip as I have always wanted to visit the Great Wall. We climbed up over a thousand steps but it was well worth it. I am glad we visited the Mutianyu Section because there were less people on the wall in this section. To my surprise, we took a giant slide down the Great Wall (I highly recommend this to anyone visiting). Last, we visited Summer Palace (after being stuck in traffic for hours). The Summer Palace was a nice way to end our trip in China by relaxing and taking in the beauty of the area.
The next morning it was off to Houston on a Delta Airlines flight!