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Thurs 26 Oct
Arrived at our hotel in Beijing at about 9.30pm after a full day travelling - at least we didn't have to buy any food! It felt very cold when we got off the plane having just spent the month in India where the temperature was always in the 30s and 40s. We went straight to bed to catch up on some sleep.
Fri 27 Oct
Eventually got out of bed at about midday but it was difficult as it was cold and we had nice warm duvets and comfortable beds which makes a change! We then wandered around Beijing - it was grey and miserable so we started to miss India. However the city is clean and tidy and it is almost like being back to normality..... apart from the fact that we speak no chinese. We walked through Tian'anmen Square and some of the old streets (hutongs). In the evening we met the rest of the people on the Intrepid tour. Twelve people in the group, all from Britain and Ireland. We had a meal out and had the Beijing speciality of roast duck and pancakes. The food was really nice and it was great to eat some vegetables again. We also had a big bottle of beer and it all came to the grand sum of about two pounds each.
Sat 28 Oct
A local guide took us and the rest of the group to Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. Tian'anmen Square is the biggest public square in the world (122 acres, big enough to hold half a million people). The Forbidden City is a huge walled area, the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. It is so called because commoners were not allowed to enter for 500 years...... good job they changed that before we arrived! The sun came out and we were back to t-shirts and suncream again. Later on we went to the Temple of Heaven, a park with classic chinese Ming architecture. It was originally conceived as the prime meeting point between earth and heaven - we didn't realise that heaven is in China but now we know! In the evening we went to an acrobat show - men wearing dresses and doing lots of handstands, 12 people on a bike, monkey-type stuff on poles, skipping and juggling, Ed is practising now and hopes to join the show before the Beijing Olympics in 2008!
Sun 29 Oct
We went to the Summer Palace, a vast public park, two thirds lake with palace temples, gardens, pavillions and corridors. We were there for hours but still didn't manage to see it all. We stopped for lunch and put on a show for some of the locals as we attempted to eat the longest noodles in the world with chopsticks! We decided to get the bus back to the city centre and we very proud of ourselves for working out the right bus given the chinese timetables. However it took 1 3/4 hours to get back as the traffic was horrendous..... and that was on Sunday. We made it back just in time to go to a Kung Fu show which told the life story (in music and kung fu) of a boy wanting to become a buddhist warrior. Afterwards we went for a meal at a small local muslim restaurant. We had piles of lovely food, beer that was cheaper than water and the whole lot cost less than a pound each.
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