Adelaide to Beijing 7-12 June
" The best laid-plans of mice and men often go awry".
No truer words have ever been spoken when being notified by our China travel rail booking agency that our submission for tickets for the Trans-Mongolian train from Beijing to Moscow on June 12 was unsuccessful due to the international ticket allocation being awarded to a travel group taking up all berths. Sounds complicated? Dead right.
Unlike the 'norm', when booking long distant trains in China one does not go on-line, book, pay and print tickets. One submits train and dates, pays then waits a month out from date of travel to be informed if your submission is successful. As stated, we were not successful. No problems with the full refund, but with bookings and visas locked in for 5 weeks, the 5 nights-6 days on the train to Moscow requires an alternative.
We were to travel with close friends to Moscow then onto St Petersburg for this leg of our journey to Nice. After spending our 4 nights in Beijing arriving on June 8, our friends chose to train to Hong Kong and with a successful ticket submission then fly to Moscow picking up the itinerary from June 17 in Moscow.
Having already visited Moscow with not enough time to do lots there is to do, we decided to extend our stay by 5 nights and further explore this unique part of the world.
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| Overnight at Adelaide Airport |
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| New International Terminal under construction
Not a good start with our 0600 flight delayed 2hrs due to Sydney fog. Departed Sydney aprox 1300 and arrived on time Beijing time at 2215 after 12+hrs flight.
SYDNEY AIRPORT
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Sunset to Beijing
Arrived at Jianguo Hotspring Hotel soon after midnight,Sunday June 9. Good sleep in then commenced 2&1/2 days of exploring and sightseeing.
TIANANMEN
National Library
Moa's Mausoleum
Long March Memorial
Great Hall
MING TOMBS
GREAT WALL
Cable Car up
Cable Car down
SUMMER PALACE
BEIJING STREET SCENES
After what was a remarkable experience in this fascinating city we were up at 0330 Wednesday June 12 for another early flight departing 0555 for Moscow via Novosibirsk.
Next blog "From Russia with Love".