A China Holiday

With my daughter's many reminders : keep yourself warm, bring thermo flask to keep warm water , text me after you checked in, enjoy yourself ....etc etc. and my son's simple words : enjoy yourself , take lots of photos to show us ,I went on a vacation with a warm heart. Those lovely texts are from my children who are thousands of miles away .

So, I went and came back with lots of photos to share with  them .

It has been 8 years since the first time I visited Beijing. Deep down many of us wanted to look at the changes China had undergone at this posr-Olympics period. We were met at the airport by a young English speaking tour leader . The weather that greeted us upon arrival was said to be 0 degree Celcius, but it was sunny and not chilling .

We were brought to breakfast in one part of the Beijing city . This was our first glimpse of Beijing.

8 am early morning street view

Window display - Beijing fashion or western fashion ?

Microsoft is here !

 

 

 

Well, this is really a different sight from what I saw the last time I was there .
We moved on to Datong after breakfast .
Datong is considered outskirt of Beijing, a 4 hour bus journey, in the Shanxi district . It is a coal mining city.
About an hour after moving out of Beijing, we saw these giant windmills .

Then we passed by many deserted plateau with stony-looking mountains in the background . It was a totally different view . These areas were dry.

The background mountain looks like an artist's work.

And there were coal- transporting trains along the way. These were real long trains with about 208 coaches including 4 locomotives.

Notice the train in the middle of this picture ?

As we came near to Datong city, we saw this energy plant .

Size is never an issue in China .

And we arrived at Datong, a dusty city with a number of historical heritages in the surrounding , two of which we were scheduled to visit .