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So my plan to update my blog regularly hasn't quite gone to plan but here is my first blog post from China! Our journey to Beijing was pretty straight forward apart from a few delays, a volunteer missing the flight and another volunteer losing their passport in Hong Kong airport an hour before our connecting flight.. The important thing is that we all made it and we are all still alive which has to count for something! Once we arrived at the hostel we dropped our luggage off (my bag is basically bigger than me by the way) and went straight to a banquet style dinner. The restaurant was really pretty and the food was interesting to say the least. I was so beyond the point of being adventurous after a serious lack of sleep so I stuck to rice.I'd love to write more about our first night in China but I genuinely have no recollection of what happened as I was so tired but I assume it consisted of showing and going straight to sleep which isn't worth writing about even though I just did.We spent 9 days in Beijing which is probably the highlight of my life so far. Climbing the Great Wall of China was definitely the best thing we did whilst we were in Beijing shortly followed by going to a Chinese market which was the craziest place I have ever been. Haggling with the stall holders was so fun and should definitely be an olympic sport and we would all get gold medals for it. I got loads of things for rediculously cheap prices including speakers, headphones, trainers and clothes. The not so fun part about the market was being physically dragged to stalls by crazy Chinese people trying to force you to buy something and not letting go of your arm until you do so. After the marked we went to pizza hut which was the best and probably only the second proper meal I have eaten here so far. I am trying to like the food but it is so so different, who eats beef noodles for breakfast?! I would greatly appreciate someone sending me a box of coco pops and some milk! Anyway, back to the Great Wall (well kind of). So we decided to explore Beijing's nightlife the night before climbing the great wall, we found a bar called four corners ran by an American guy and was full of English speaking people which was absolutely amazing after not understanding a word anyone had said for a full 48 hours (felt like a lot longer). Long story short, the 45 minutes of walking up continuous stairs to the wall was a lot more challenging with only 2 hours sleep and still being under the influence of Chinese alcohol which is a lot stronger. One of the volunteers was genuinely sick over the great wall which is something I doubt I will ever forget, so classy. We also got to toboggan (definitely spelt wrong) down the great wall which was a brilliant experience even though my back was almost broken when Brian crashed into the back of me. Apart from the Great Wall which I've successfully ranted about for half of my blog we also visited Tianan' men square where we all became the new tourist attraction.You'd think no one had ever seen a foreign person. Literally everyone wanted photos with us, some didn't even bother asking whether they could take our photo. It was pretty cool feeling like a celebrity for the first few hours but now it's been 3 weeks and it's fair to say I'm pretty sick of being stared and photographed at like I'm a zoo animal. All in all Beijing is my new favourite place and I can't wait to go back there in the next year!
Zai jian! x
p.s I'm still hoping my blog writing skills improve and sorry for the lack of paragraphs, one big one will just have to do!
- comments
Peter Hadingue Nice blog. Glad you made it safe. We found out why Chinese don't ear dairy. They are lactose intolerant. We have some Hirshes kisses to send you in your next care package.
gran Very interesting Georgie......just let us know what we can or cannot send you and to where!!, in the meanwhile DO NOT accept food or drink from anyone ....buy your own ALL the time