BACKYARD CHINA: YanQing County, Longqing Gorge

I have been meaning to go this Gorge for literally the whole summer. So shame on me, it’s September and I still haven’t gone. Alicia and I planned that we were GOING TO GO, this last Tuesday… Monday night came, and as we were sitting around she says to me, “let’s go tonight”. I said, “we don’t have a place to stay”. She says, “who cares” and I said, “okay”. Hahaha 😀

So we set out to Longqing Gorge. Luckily it’s a short train ride away (1.5 hours). We left around 5pm, and headed up to the gorge. We packed a sheet in case we were camping outside, and we brought matches and lighters to make a fire. Yes that’s right, we were ready to ghetto stay in a park or somewhere if need be.

We arrived and started walking north, we knew the gorge was in that direction and figured we have all night why not?! Upon walking we saw many awesome things, I believe (and please correct me if I’m wrong) but that area had to do with some of the Beijing Olympics Cycling. There were a lot of cycle statues around.

Anyways we walked into town, and met some locals and ate some food. ChinEnglish was exchanged and lots of fun, beers, and laughs were exchanged it was great!

We kept walking north through a park on the water, which was gorgeous, and that’s where we say Heavens lights… almost literally. What did we spy!? A DRIVING RANGE. Alicia is a great golfer.. me I am a beginner but enthusiastic to learn! It was 100 RMB for 100 balls, and we were SO IN! We golfed on this random beautiful driving range at around 9pm! It was awesome! After that we were feeling really good and decided to just keep walking and see where we could go, maybe we could make it to the gorge… we kept walking for a few hours and unfortunately realized the gorge was quite a ways a way… and it was really dark. That area is almost untouched by the epidemic of millions of people, and we could actually see the night sky, and not hear a sound around (which at this point of being here a year, was eerie!). We walked back into town, wanting to set up camp, reluctantly though because the park isn’t what we thought it was, there was no coverage and upon walking back saw a hotel. We got there around 1 am and passed out… literally once we got inside!

The next morning we woke up and headed to the gorge, I was SO EXCITED, and almost couldn’t wait any longer.

The gorge was … unbelievable. Absolutely a MUST SEE. People go on and on about the top ten attractions INSIDE Beijing… but they are nothing compared to the natural beauty of the gorge, it was breathtaking and honestly, I don’t know if i’ll see anything like that again!

I can’t describe anymore, you’ll have to see for yourself– pictures attached!

As always if you have any questions on how to get there, where to stay, or anything- please message me! 🙂