My Dream Destination: China

Where is China?!

China, also known as The People's Republic of China is a country that is located in Eastern Asia. It's the world most populous nation with around 1.4 billion people and covers roughly 9.6 million square kilometers. It's the worlds third or fourth largest country by area. The capital city of China is Beijing and the largest city is Shanghai. The official language of China is Mandarin, as well as other dialects like Uyghur, Mongolian and Tibetan.

Why do I want to visit China?

Since I was a child, I've always wanted to travel to China. I was surrounded by Chinese culture and cuisine all my life, and would regularly travel to Chinatown and other Chinese neighbourhoods as a child. My mom loved visiting Chinese malls, eat Chinese food and shop at different Chinese markets, so she often took my brother and I to places like Chinatown in downtown Toronto to shop for cheap movies, eat Chinese food, walk around and enjoy the weekend. I grew up loving the Chinese culture because of my mom.

Throughout my life, I've made friends and interacted with many Chinese people, because of their wonderful hospitality, intelligence and acceptance of me as a person. Chinese people have a great personality and love to mingle with new people, even strangers. They are not afraid to speak their mind and are extremely intelligent people. Through years of personal experience with Chinese citizens and having the passion to study and explore the Chinese culture, I finally added China as one of the top places to visit in the nearer future!

Which places do I want to visit during my trip to China?

Just like any nation I want to travel to in the future, I have to pick and choose which sites interest me the most during my first stay, since it is impossible to do everything at one time. I mainly enjoy dining out, shopping at multiple shopping centres and markets, going for nature walks, relaxing at the hotel, meeting new people, taking photographs, attending cultural festivals and visiting historical sites. The types of activities I would be doing would be based on the kind of day it is, the mood I'm in or the amount of money I have.

Since I'm a pretty humble person, I wouldn't want to visit any bars, karaoke bars and nightclubs, especially if I want to travel to China alone. Even though I love meeting new people and making friends, I'm often reticent around middle-aged guys, because of my past experiences with middle-aged men online. I don't want to put myself in a predicament in which a man behaves inapprorpriate around me, especially in a foreign country where I don't know the language as well and if I'm alone. I would prefer to play it safe and visit places where the likelihood of a man flirting with me in public is rather low than high.

Most of my travelling would be done during the day, since I believe it is safer that way. I would typically be hanging out in my hotel room at night to watch a movie, have a snack, take a shower, brush my teeth, rest, have some tea, read a book, play some solitaire games and sleep.

These are the things I want to do during my stay:

1. Explore and take some photographs of The Summer Palace in Beijing

The Summer Palace is a gem to treasure! It's a vast assemblage of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden during the Qing Dynasty. It's mainly governed by Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake and it covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three-quarters of which consists of water. It's been around since 1750 and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998.

For someone who enjoys taking photographs of various historical sites and walking around such as myself, this would be a perfect spot to visit during my trip to China! I would relax, walk around and take as many photos as I can, so I can post them on social media for my friends and family to see.

2. Walk and discover The Great Wall of China in Beijing

The Great Wall of China is a series of defensive walls that were constructed across the historical northern borders of primitive Chinese states and Imperial China. The purpose of building these fortifications was to protect against nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe. Building the wall took over 1800 years and a secret ingredient can be discovered in the wall- glutinous rice. The Great Wall of China is 7.88 meters tall, is 21,196 kilometers and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.

I enjoy exploring multiple ancient historical sites, so I believe visiting the Great Wall of China would be an amazing opportunity for me. I would want to walk around and take a bunch of photographs to post on social media. After my visit to the Great Wall of China, I would find a local supermarket to grab a snack and go back to my hotel room for a pre-meal rest.

3. Enjoy a vegetarian meal at the Vegetarian Tiger Restaurant in Beijing

Vegetarian Tiger is a vegetarian restaurant chain located in Beijing. They have quite a few locations, with one of them just near Qianmen Station which is a bit further away from the southwest corner of Tiananmen Square. The restaurant is spacious with lots of seating. The kind of food that is ultimately served at Vegetarian Tiger is a la carte Chinese style soups and dishes with mushrooms, tofu, fake meat, assorted vegetables and noodles. The restaurant also offers all-you-can-eat.

I'm no stranger to Chinese vegetarian restaurants. I've been to multiple Chinese vegetarian eateries with my family and friends, so dining at Vegetarian Restaurant in China would be a memorable experience for me. It will also bring back childhood memories of me going to eateries like Kings Cafe and The Graceful Vegetarian with my dad and other family members. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to vegetables, but I love consuming mushrooms, onions, lettuce and potatoes. I'm a huge fan of tofu and mock meat. My plan is to eat whatever I feel like eating when I come here, so I can feel nice and full before I return to my hotel room for the night.

4. Play some games at the SoReal VR arcade in Beijing

The SoReal arcade is a completely immersive virtual reality experience-based theme park. This novel virtual reality-based amusement park in Beijing offers arena-size multiplayer games, cinematic virtual reality experiences, E-sports, food and drinks, items to purchase and many more. The game genres that SoReal has to offer to consumers include action, RPG, sports, etc. The goal is to provide customers with the best possible immersive virtual reality experiences.

Although I'm not really big on action games and E-sports, I believe that it will be worth a try. I'm a gamer, and I'm always open to exploring various game genres. My brothers were avid players of violent video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, so I kind of grew up around violent video games. I used to find them "useless", "a waste of time" and "bad for mental health", but now that I'm older, I have different views on them. As long as I don't get addicted and only play them for fun, why not try them out at an arcade?! I would love to have some good food and play some games!

5. Shop and eat at the Lufthansa Center in Beijing

The Lufthansa Center was the first ever Western-style shopping complex built in Beijing in 1992. The three components of this unique facility entails YouYi Shopping City, Kempinski Hotel Beijing and the Kempinski Serviced Apartments/Office Complex.

The YouYi shopping centre mainly sells popular western clothing brands. The hotel has 526 rooms of various types and was the German House during the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Lufthansa Center also includes serveral restaurants, which are supervised by the Kempinski hotel. There are many more services that the center has to offer.

I would mainly visit the complex to shop for some t shirts, have a nice dinner and return to my hotel room which would be at the Kempinski Hotel Beijing.

6. Relax and enjoy the beautiful weather at the People's Park in Shanghai

The People's Park is a public park located in the Huangpu District of central Shanghai. It is south of Nanjing Road, a major shopping street, and north of People's Square. The park was established in 1952 and is also nearby several museums. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Shanghai. Asides from several museums and a shopping street, other park amenities include a big pond with a cafe-bar (Barbarossa) and other fun activities like a carnival. Overlooking the park are numerous highrise buildings like Tomorrow Square and Park Hotel Shanghai (the hotel that I would stay in for the remainder of my trip to China, because I'll be staying in Shanghai for the last few days of my trip).

While I'm at the People's Park, my plan would be to visit on a nice, beautiful spring, summer or fall day to allow myself more time for leisure and relaxation without being too cold or too hot. I would most likely relax on a bench or under a tree, read a book, listen to music, play some puzzle games on my phone or manually in a puzzle booklet I would have with me, and have some snacks and drinks. I would also love to take a lengthy walk to enable exercise prior to dinner and returning to my suite for the night.

Although there are many other attractions that I would like to visit during my trip to Shanghai and Beijing, these are just to name a few of them on my list. Hopefully, I will enjoy meeting some new people, experiencing the Chinese culture the authentic way, learning some new words in Mandarin and make as many positive memories as I can!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading another one of My Dream Destination travel blogs. For more exciting travel stories, please visit my profile. If you enjoyed this specific blog, please feel free to share, read, send a tip and like. Cheers to all of my friends and have an amazing long weekend! Bye!