There was a brief escape from that though as I took a trip to Chengde with some friends for a weekend. Chengde is a city about 250 km away from Beijing, built largely as an imperial recreation place. There's a large amount of temples, especially of the Lama Buddhist style, and an imperial palace and large grounds with all sorts of "beauty spots", mainly pavilions or houses in great scenery, built during the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911). There's a couple of interesting-looking rocks too, and nice hiking in the mountains. I don't think there are any vegetarian restaurants, but you can get veggies from the regular restaurants as usual in China.
You get to Chengde from Beijing by various buses or a train. The buses leave from Sihui long distance bus station, or there might be buses from elsewhere too but at least from there. The ticket price is from Y50 up. The slow and crowded train that runs once a day during the night is only Y20.
In Beijing it's been a working and exercising mainly, and of course vegan club meetings. There have been a couple of team building events from work, going hiking to waterfalls and boating around. Some pics from those then:
Oh, and also a new vegan restaurant has now been opened in town, the Vegan Hut, but I'll write a proper review of that later. Finally, I have talked to the bosses and have got my distance work idea approved, so I shall be leaving Beijing soon. First, though, I'll be spending a couple of weeks in Shaanxi countryside, then returning to Beijing briefly although I won't have an apartment here anymore, and then off somewhere else. Haven't decided where to yet. Exciting, isn't it? :-)
