Sightseeing in Beijing

in Tiananmen Square

We arrived in Beijing on Saturday morning to a foggy day in the big city. We tried to get a cheap taxi to our hostel but succeeded in getting ripped off by paying 30 RMB ($5) for the 2 km drive. We checked in to the New Dragon Hostel and went to find a bank. Unfortunately due to the chronic floods in Hunan, their computers were all down and our cards wouldn't work. Lucky we had Emma and Edde to hit up for cash. Leaving James at the hostel to due the washing, Edde Emma and I headed to the supermarket to find what yumminess there was there. Only had one tantrum when the security guard wouldn't let us back up the stairs we came down to get our stuff, he wanted us to go out the front and around the block instead. One swear word later, we were out of there. Headed to the night markets for dinner that night. The options were numerous and included delicacies such as bbq'd scorpions, snake and crickets. We stuck to tofu, beef and veges. Emma got ripped off by paying 30 yuan for 3 prawns!!! Decided we would chill that night by watching a DVD so we bought the new Pirates of the Carribean and X-Men 3. Unfortunately the Pirates DVD had a different movie all together on it with a few recognisable WWF wrestlers on it, and X-Men 3 was in Spanish. We hit the sack instead.

3 monkeys in the Forbidden City

Sunday morning, James got up early and headed to the Weekend Markets, which are huge. The rest of us slept in and hung out in the lobby for the morning until the afternoon when we decided to go for the Lonely Planet's bike tour. We hired some bikes and set off, first to Tiananmen Square, then to the outside walls of the Forbidden City, and after that we got hopelessly lost for an hour or so. We gave up and tried to find our way back. We went to Ra Chang in Ho Ha for dinner and met up with Yu Mei and Cao who we met in Vietnam and Lynn, a friend of Yu Mei's. We had the most delicious dinner and lovely time with the girls. Then we headed around the corner to the bar strip which has the view of a man made lake. The bars were too expensive for us budget travellers but they were amazing just to look at and there were great shops there too.

Monday was spent organising train tickets and finding our way into the Forbidden City and exploring. We were a little bored as the atmosphere was less than wondrous what with thousands of Chinese pushing, shoving and yelling all over. Also, a lot of the major buildings were under construction. The restaurant in the grounds didn't have any food at all so we tried to find our way out of the place which was the most fun all day as it was nearly impossible to get out (only 2 exits). We took our way to the Food Court that night and it was great. Heaps of food to choose from, it was really clean and beat Hobart's food court hands down. They cooked for you as you ordered so everything was fresh too. James and Edde went for Roast Duck, Emma had calamari and I had chicken and clay pot rice served in a banana leaf. On the way back home we managed to run into the Irish girls (we're such locals now) which was amazing. What are the chances?

The Great Wall is conquered!

Getting up at 5am we managed to leave Beijing at 7am to The Great Wall, with Rachel, a girl we met in the lobby of the hostel, coming along. Rachel speaks Chinese so she managed to barter for a lift to the Great Wall and back. Well, it was great and it definitely was a wall. We hiked for 4 hours going up, going down, going up, going down. It was also a perfectly clear day and sunny and we saw only 2 other tourists the whole time, though there were a lot of hawkers. 'Iced water, coca cola, beer'. There was only one slip when Rachel slid in a mud slick and tipped over. Had to be the one wearing white. Well, we conquered the wall eventually and as Mao says, We're now men. (Emma and I are 'wo-men'). We got back to Beijing at 7pm which was hard because our train left at 7.50pm. We made it though in a mad rush, and actually managed to buy some jauzes and bauzes for the trip. Celebrated our feat with a bottle of Great Wall wine!