This past weekend I went to Beijing for three days. It was so much fun, but so tiring because we crammed so much into only three days. We were constantly on the go and walking around the whole city.

In order to get to Beijing, we took the over night train from Shanghai to Beijing. We left around 9:30pm on Friday night and arrived in Beijing around 7:15am on Saturday. The train was a really fun experience. I went to Beijing with three other girls that I met here in Shanghai. We all paid the extra money to get a car with beds so that we would be comfortable for the 10hour train ride and be rested and ready to explore Beijing. This was the first time I have ever sleep on a train or traveled such a long distance by train. It's not a bad way to Travel. I didn't get much sleep though because the train made a lot of noise and I wasn't used to the movements.

Once we made it to Beijing, we checked into our hostel, Beijing Jade Youth International Hostel. The rooms were nice and they offered tour and travel services. We had a pretty stressful check in because one of the girls had forgotten her passport (Well, she had her old passport, not her current one.). All of us had to scramble around to figure out what to do because the hostel would not let her stay there without her passport. Eventually, she was able to find another hostel close by and they let her stay in without her proper passport.

There is so much to do in Beijing and we tried to pack so much into three days. We ended up see a lot and all enjoyed ourselves greatly. I wish we had more time to spend in the city to see more and so we didn't have to constantly rush around in order to see all that we wanted to see.

We made it to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, The Great Wall, Donghuamen Night Market, Houhai ( a little area by a lake that looked beautiful at night), a Jade Factory, the Ming Tombs, a Tea House, the Silk Market, Lama Temple, and the Temple of Heaven (even though we could only walk around the grounds because the actual temple part was closed when we got there), and the Panjiayuan Market. Bejing was such an interesting experience because we had no idea how to get anywhere and even less people speak English there than in Shanghai. We always managed to get where we wanted to go by asking people for directions. Everyone was so helpful, especially the bus drivers. They would tell us exactly where we needed to get off the bus.

All of the places we visited were so amazing, but I don't want to cram them all into on blog...so I will write my thoughts down in different ones and you can choose which ones to read. :)