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The next leg of our journey took us from Ulaambaatar to Beijing. We had an early start to catch the train at 7.15am. The train ploughed on through the wasteland of the Gobi desert and we reached the Chinese border around 10pm. Once we got through customs, we then had to wait for the train to change its wheels. No, you read that right. The Russians changed their railway network during World War 2 in fear of the Germans storming Moscow by train, and so every train crossing from Mongolia into China (or vice versa) goes through this process.
It was 1am by the time the wheels got sorted, at which point the two Mongolian girls we were sharing a carriage with (being a little tipsy by this stage) decided they'd put on a bit of a karaoke performance for us as we tried to get to sleep. Gits.
The next morning we were greeted with spectacular scenery as the train weaved its way through the Chinese mountains toward Beijing. Once we'd arrived and got sorted in our hotel, we navigated the Beijing subway and headed to the Summer Palace; an area previously occupied by emperors when on their holidays (known for being peaceful and tranquil). We seemed to arrive at the same time as around 500 tour groups, so it was anything but peaceful (or tranquil)! After a bit of a wander round the lake, and seeing various temples and leafy courtyards, we were getting hungry so headed back to the hotel for that well known Chinese delicacy...pizza (guess whose idea that was).
At this point, our main observations about China were:
There are KFCs everywhere (they're like Greggs in Newcastle!).
There are no rules when it comes to driving in China.
The Chinese have never seen boobs before. Every male blatantly stared at Faye's, and even some women were pointing and staring!
Fried rice comes with everything, even breakfast.
Next day we were due to meet our tour group around 6pm so being the sophisticated couple that we are, headed out to the local antique / craft market before the meeting to peruse what Beijing had to offer. The market was huge; lots of aisles split roughly into different types of wares and we were able to look (and even pick stuff up!) without getting harassed (a lot of the traders were actually asleep as the market had opened at 4.30am). After a bit of haggling for a souvenir, we met up with our tour group and went for some actual Chinese food! You've got to be fast with your chopsticks to catch the food as it flies past on the lazy Susan in this part of the world!
The following day, we went to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City as part of a walking tour of Beijing. Despite being the biggest in the world and being able to hold half a million people, the Square was rammed! The Forbidden City is where previous emperors lived - again, huge with beautiful Chinese architecture. We then had lunch (Chinese again) and visited the oldest district in Beijing before going to see the Lama temple (the biggest outside Tibet) and then Confucius' temple to contemplate a bit of wisdom.
In the evening, we went... for a Chinese with the group (this time without the guide) as we wanted to sample the Peking duck, and at one stage we had 6 of the waiting staff trying to work out what we wanted to order! The duck was a little disappointing. It was presented on a platter, complete with its head, and the whole thing looked like it had been sliced in half right down the middle from head to tail. After very little persuasion, one of our group tried the brain and proclaimed it to be disgusting. No surprises there.
Our final day in Beijing was spent visiting the Great Wall. The majority of our group took the cable car up to the second highest tower on the wall. We walked as the cable car was quite pricey. Many steps later, we walked up and down the wall visiting the various towers along the way and then had the option of either walking down, taking the cable car or tobogganing down(!). Well, what better way to get down off the Great Wall than to toboggan down? Great fun!
From the Great Wall we went directly to the airport for a flight top Xian to continue our tour...
Beijing gets a big thumbs up from us!
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