Beijing

I managed to get myself from Hong Kong to Beijing without any hassle. I caught a bus from Hong Kong to Shenzhen airport in China, then flew from there to Beijing with my brothers nemesis Air China (they basically owe him money & aren't exactly being helpful about resolving the issue, it's a long story...). It wasn't a bad flight, apart from the pigs intestines which they served me for lunch! I settled for the plain rice! I arrived at my hostel around 5pm & spent a couple of hours wandering around the local area. The hostel is in a brilliant location, set amongst a maze of traditional hutongs. The alleyway the hostel is on is full of cool little cafes & bars & unique little boutiques.

Today was a sightseeing day. I visited Tiananmen square -the biggest public space in the world, and also spent several hours exploring the Forbidden City. I love the architecture & colours of the buildings. Mao's mausoleum was closed by the time I got there, (it shuts at midday!) but I might try & get there on Friday to pay my respects to the big fella!

The Forbidden city was really well signposted in English, which is a rarity for China! However some of the translations were quite amusing...

I then had a wander along Wangfujing Dajie which is the main shopping street. It has some amazing shopping malls along it, most of them at least 6 stories high. I took a detour along Wangfujing 'snack street' which branches off the main street through the ornate archway below. It had some interesting morsels for sale... Some of the insects on the skewer were still alive!

It is a lot colder here than in Hong Kong, the first thing I did when I arrived was to buy a pair of gloves. One of my room mates in the hostel has been here for a week & said that is snowed 3 days ago! However today was a gorgeous day with beautiful clear blue skies, & it was quite warm in the sunshine.

Tomorrow I'm off on a full day trip hiking 10km of a deserted stretch of the great wall. It is about 3 hours drive from Beijing & we are leaving at 6:40am which will be a shock to the system! On Friday I leave on an overnight train to Xi an which takes 11 hours. Unfortunately all the sleeper berths were sold out, so I'm going to be in a seat the whole way... It's going to be hard work me thinks!

Overall I've been impressed with Beijing so far. It isn't as manically busy as I expected. There are very few westerners around, & hardly any signage in English. I'm managing to get by OK, I'm mostly eating at shopping centres which have the most amazing foodcourts with nearly any Asian cuisine you could wish for. I tend to see someone buying something that looks good, & just point to it! Food is incredibly cheap, most meals are under a pound or 2. I'm also enjoying a lot of the street food, even if I have no idea what I'm eating half the time! I am VERY impressed with the metro. It has huge clean stations, the trains are fast & efficient, & best of all, it only costs 20p per ride! It puts the 4 or 5 pounds that the London underground charges to shame...

Right, this post is plenty long enough, & I'd better head to bed since I have such an early start. Hopefully the next post will have some pictures of the great wall of China.