Beijing - Stop spitting, there is a car coming...

Ok, so if we were writing this entry at the beginning of our stay here, it would have been from an entirely different perspective all together.

However, after a relatively smooth 3 hour flight from Kyoto, where Jo was once again obsessed by the surprises of plane food, we arrived at Beijing airport. Negotiating a flight link bus was of somewhat ease, even if the lady on the ticket desk did just constantly nod at my every question as if she completely understood my ramblings of how much it would cost and which stop we needed to get off at?

Anyway once aboard, a host of amazed looks and glares latter, we weren't quite ready for what was the craziest of driving systems. With constant tooting of horns and sheer madness, no cars seem to stop - even at red lights!

Arriving into central Beijing to finish the short ride to our hostel, we got off the bus to the alarming sounds of taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, you want taxi? No. You want taxi? No. where you want taxi? To my amazement it was just as Jon and Ant had described, but not quite so funny in the 36 degree heat!

Once we made our way to the hostel, it wasn't exactly as the pictures suggested, our room wasn't the 5star palace as we were shown but never the less, was quite cute, a good size and actually had 4 walls. After the past 8 days in Japan, we decided to have a quick nap, however, sleeping the rest of the day we finally awoke 16 hours later.

Our first real day was now a Sunday, obviously a weekend day but oblivious to the fact, we somehow decided it would be a good idea to take the short trip from the hostel to visit the Forbidden City. How wrong could we be! Walking down a road that seemed to suddenly vanish, think the yellow brick road, suddenly ending at a building site. Victims of a few attempted scams latter and we were finally there.

Getting to the Forbidden City we were met by crowds of Chinese people and tourists all pushing and shoving to get in with the occasional eastern habit of spitting. All of which Jo was not only horrified at but absolutely fuming at their somewhat lack of manners. Even though this gave us a bad impression to begin with, the trip round the attraction was actually very pleasant, yet chaotic as the sheer size and history of the place took over. Possibly one of the greatest places of Chinese heritage, I am glad to say we have seen it.

Somewhat adapting to the lifestyle here and trying to ignore our somewhat celebrity status, the rest of our time here has gradually made us realize that Beijing is in fact a pretty amazing city. Although it seems to be constantly redeveloping and has been obviously patched up for the Olympics, there is so much potential here for its future.

Managed to visit lots and lots of great places, including The Summer Palace, The Olympic Village with it's amazing Birds Nest stadium (WOW), Beihai Park, Beijing's finest Hutongs (slums), Tian'anmen Square, The Chairman of Mao Memorial, a Chinese Acrobatics performance and much much more.

The highlight of our 9 day trip however was the Great Wall! Ranking up there with our previous visit to the Grand Canyon, this place was out of this world. Incredible! We went on a trip to the Mutinyu side that also included the Ming Tombs and a few weird stops at other destinations such as a tea ceremony, a jade factory and a silk market, of which we were told was going to be a supermarket. Much to Jo's displeasure she would in fact be bombarded with sales for silk bedding instead of what she had thought would have been browsing a nice range of cheese's! Oh well!

Before we go, the weather has been brilliant, easily 32+ degrees every day. The food has been so good and so cheap. We have had some great meals but nothing really compared to the Milk ice lollies here, only 10p for possibly the best ice cream ever! Although everything we ate we enjoyed, we weren't quite brave enough to try some of the local delicassies including Snake, Sheep Penis, Dog or live scorpion.

A big thanks to Kev, who with his well written essay of an email describing exactly where to look, go, buy things and eat, we rarely needed our guide book.

Like we said, we have had an ace time here after a rocky beginning. Hopefully it will continue. Roll on Honk Kong!