Beijing

Hello! We have found a way around the Chinese blockade on blog postage...get your dad to post it! (Facebook and google blogger is blocked by China!)

Our first stop is Beijing on our 6 months trip. We arrived very early and decided it would be a good idea to walk to our hostel, which it wasn't! Especially as a Taxi would've been £1!

Our first impression of Beijing was smoggy or foggy, couldn't decide which at the time, but it is definately smog!

After a refreshing lunchtime kip we went to the Olympic area. Only costs 20 pence a tube journey so quickly utilised this strategy! We got off the tube a little too far away and had to walk along a quiet promonade heading towards the smog. As we walked towards the smog we were getting freaked out by an old guy on moped playing chinese techno music going up and down the promenade for no apparent reason!

Went inside the birdnest stadium, where we realised we were also part of the attraction for Chinese tourists as a mother asked if her little girl could have her picture taken with us - so she just plonked her down in between us and took a photo!! The stadium is impressive, as is the water cube when lit up at night, we'll post pics later.

To add to the delight of 1st day tiredness, our camera broke! Our camera had been through thick and thin with us (mainly been dropped on floor) but it just couldn't handle the sunset smog picture which broke it.

On our way back home we decided to indugle in our first Chinese meal. 2 hours after the meal I was still hungry, so that is a clue to how it went. On the menu was Lamb testicles, Cow lung + stomach + random (animal + any body part). We pointed at prawns and vegetable balls, the women looked confused and kept pointing to other pages in the menu. We told her that was all we wanted, and when it arrived we realised why she was confused!! We had a broth with only prawns (with their heads, legs and often full of their eggs) floating around a brown soup with some vegtable balls!! Yummy it was not!!

On our 2nd day we had to jump in a taxi and go to the electronics area of the city. The hotel receptionist gave us chinese writing on a piece of paper and told us to give it to a taxi driver, so we did! He got us there in one piece, but their driving is crazy!! There's no point in having lanes as they weave in and out constantly beeping their horn! But we have a new camera, although bizzarly it wasn't any cheaper than from amazon at home! After that we went to The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Sqaure.

The square was as expected, a large concrete square! The forbidden city had nice buildings but there's only so much you can hear about 'this building was used for reading', 'this one for relaxing', 'this one for...'. Its the 60 anniversary of the peoples republic in 2 weeks time but they are preparing for it outside of the forbidden city and in the square now! (surprisingly there is no mention that it's also the 20th anniversary of the Tinanmen square masacre!!!!)

The meal was more successful that evening and were given an 'english menu' when everyone else in the restaurant had a different menu (no lungs or testicles on ours!!)!

Went back to the water cube that evening to get pictures in the dark. I managed to start a craze of taking pictures while resting on a bin (makeshift tripod). I was doing it to capture night shots but the chinese starting copying and did it for all photos! Quite funny.

3rd day mainly spent deciding what to do for Xian, our next stop and great wall trip. We are booked into go on Saturday at 6:30am! Then leaving for Xian via a sleeper train, arriving early Sunday.

After this we did goto a really nice park which overlooked the city and mainly The forbidden city. But when we left the park we got stuck walking around the area because all the roads were getting closed in preparation for 60 anniversary...in 2 weeks time!!!

It was a 5.30 wake up for a 6.30 pickup to go to The Great Wall of China. We decided to book through our hostel who took us to a less touristy area. The penalty, a 3 hour minibus ride there. I have to say it was definately worth it. It was absolutely amanzing.

The first part of the wall was unrepaired so was thin in places, rocky, sometimes with no sides and a big drop! It was so steep, at times steps were as high our knees and narrow so we had to do a lot of climbing too! We took so many snaps so will post when we can! When we got to the end we took a zip line down which was brilliant fun. We were both attached to the rope. Being the first couple to go together I wondered if it was ok. The lady attendent (who was about 80), looked at us and said '2 people go faster' ! I bought my first purchase - an 'I climbed the great wall t-shirt'. As everyone knows I'm a tourist here anyway (for obvious reasons) I don't feel so much of a pratt!

In total we hiked for 8.8 kilometres which took about 4 hours at a leisurely pace. 2 other things amazed me - 1) getting a phone signal on the wall! 2) the pace the local women walked up dirt tracks on the mountain to sell us souveniers (- included champagne!)

We took a night train to Xi'an that evening (which I was very glad we made - a story for another day!) and got a suprisingly great nights sleep! So far we've found that the Chinese are an inquisitive bunch when it comes to us, the immgrant card referred to us as 'Aleins' and they look at us like we are. It feels safe though and they are very friendly, especially when they want us to buy something! Next post Xi'an and the terracotta warriors....



Zip Slide video...