So finally after 2 weeks in...our first blog!

Wednesday 8th October

After some what of a struggle getting our visas and a short trip in a very intimadating male orientated Dubai Airport.. we landed in Beijing! We were the last ones through the gate as we were alseep when we were told to fill out yet another form ( back of the que for me (liz) but we met our pick up man who was there on time! Needless to say our communication skills were not too great but he signalled for me to put on my jumper (as it was cold out) and we followed him giggling as we went. We approached a new..aircon tourist van but walked straight past it to the oldest banger availiable in china! Any way we made it to our Hostel safe and sound, first thing we noticed in China..they are CRAZY drivers and dont believe in seat belts!! Anyway..an hour later we arrived at our hostel,The Red Lantern. We had to go down a scary alley but once in our local 'Hutong' we were closed off to the world, confined in a really cosy courtyard. Our room was nice but interesting and after a few hours kip on Dubai airport floor the hardness of the bed sent us off to sleep.

Thursday 9th October

Today was our first sightseeing day and our first point of interest was the Olympic stadium. We stepped out of our hosetl and walking down the street was quite worrying at first, we didnt know what to expect, what the people were like and to make it worse we were getting glaring looks in every direction!! We later realised that 'westerners' are pretty scarce as we didnt see any all day! Unfortunataly, the first stadium was a ghost town and nothing was open, and after only a few weeks since the Olympics, you could see it was already looking shabby and unused.. The 'Birdsnest' stadium was alot more busier and buzzing wtih toursists.. It looked pretty awesome too but stood out massivly amongst the rest of the neighbouring town! After this we visited our next sightseeing spot..'Summer Palace', at this point it fell down with rain and I had no coat and was wearing flip flops(Alex) - so I looked an idot and now getting evan more looks from people. We bought matching pink scarfs as we were freezing and looked the part in our cashmere scarf and summer flip flops! However, Summer Palace was absolutly beautiful..the rain stopped.. the buildings were so pretty, and through an opened door was a huge lake.. the sun was setting and it really was a 'moment', so picturesque. We were still in shock that we were finally here in China! ... Having not eaten all day we got back to town and went to the first restaurant.. thank god they served rice as we didnt have a clue what anything else was ..amongst other things we see 'Dog' on the menu but wasnt feeling too brave to try it!!

Friday 10th October.

In Beijing they like to wake you up by starting their days work....in this case a carpenter starting his saw outside our window! Yes mum we were not pleased but it stopped us from sleeping all day! We managed to venture on the underground system which with a little help at the start was actually quite easy to use. We also discovered the toilet system in China...holes in the ground! We have tried to aviod them and have been using disabled facilitys to compensate! We walked into town and had Mc D...I know but we were starving! We went to some indoor markets where we tried hagglingly...admittidley we were a little rusty but we are learning! I managed to get a camera chip (for my broken camera (liz)) 400 CNY down to 130..which is prbably still a rip off but hey. We headed over to the 'Temple of Heaven ' which was really beautiful (we did get a bit lost in the gardens). The best bit about this place is that the Chinese gather and just be creative I suppose. We watched dancers, singers, people playing tradditional chinese games and just Beijing's daily life. We could have watched them all day but headed over to ' Tiananmen Square' which is the largest city square in the world. It was huge but there were hundreds of people to fill it, many of which asked for us to be in their photos! Considering that China only opened their doors to World in 1978 you can understand why they think we are a novelty. There was some sort of army parade thing but after 10 mins of poor Alex standing next to the oldest chinese d*** van winkle, with a skinny weasel beard which he kept touching her shoulder wtih when he was trying to see what was going on through the crowd..we left shortly! we walked over to Forbidden City Garden. It was very peaceful and was nice to be away from the crowds as it was late but Al was a little scared as we were getting lost again in the dark! We went for dinner in an interesting restaurant where they had a huge steamer on the table where you cooked all your own food......emm no we did not do this but spied on an older western couple next to us who had hired help...it was enough of an experience for us as we noticed sheeps testicle and snake meat on the menu! Beijing by night comes alive as all the temples are lit up. We watched a local outdoor gym class ( well an interpretation of one) and haggled with one of them bike cart things to take us home.....Danger but fun!

Saturday 11th October

Today was my 25th Birthday (alex!) and what a wicked place to spend it. On todays agenda we had booked to see the Great Wall! After a nice half six start (liz loved it) we met our tour guide and joined our group. On route and just outside Beijing we stopped off at a factory where we was shown how the gem 'Jade' was sourced and made into jewellery and other things. Of course we were roped into buying something, we have noticed that the Chinese are great sellers and very smart! so we both bought a little bracelet.. the most expensive one we will buy on this trip we decided, but nethertheless. This tour was then followed by another at whats know as the 'Ming Tombs', not too impressive as a 'tomb' is actually just a big hill, so you dont get to actually see anything! After a stop off for lunch we eventually made it to the Great Wall. Thank god we never went with my first idea of doing the 10k hike on a remote part of the wall as after walking about 4 steps onto the wall I was already breathing heavily!! The steps were very steep and my little legs didnt like them!, plus it was the hottest day so far! Our aim was to walk/climb up to the furthest tower away- this took us about an hour with a few pit stops too..seriously knackering! At one point I was ready to give in (Doesnt take me much) but when I saw an 80+ yr old powering passed me I gave myself a talking to and carried on. The views were breathtaking, we were so lucky for it to be a clear day, we could see for miles. We took some great pics too.. Finally we got to the top and after admiring the view we started our walk back down.. poor liz got stung under her arm though by some kind of evil wasp which she wasnt too impressed with :-( . This Wall was def a good work our for us and we were shattered when we made it back down..It wasnt so easy as the wall was heaving wtih tourists pushing past you! Coming to the end of our day, we left the Wall and headed back, stopping off at a Chinese Medicinal Centre..appropriatly next door to the Jade Factory..what are the chances?! This little tour was quite interesting and we were all taken into a room and givn a quick brief about Chiense Medicine by a student. Liz and I were both trying not to laugh out loud at what must be the worst chinese person speaking English - ever! Her accent was a cross between Stephen hawkins and a Swede..you had to be there I guess, but she deserved an 'A' for effort though. Then came in the 'big guys' who were high up in the ranks and one by one they gave us a free 'checkover'. We had to sit infront of them and they sat and felt our pulses with their first 3 fingers, apparantly its all linked with our internal organs and theya re able to diagnose any problems you may have.. after being prompted to then stick my tongue out, the Doctor muttered to his assistant and smiled. I was 'healthy' surprisingly enough. Liz was told that she had 'too much heat in the liver'..but this didnt seem uncommon as the lady before her was also diagnosed with this.. its caused by alchohol,hot foods and makes you impatient.. Of course there was a medicine you could purchase for this, but no, we didnt fall for it!

To finish off our day, we treated ourselves to Beijings special cuisine 'Roast Duck'.. as it happened, this was apparantly served in most restuarants but that was infact a little porky as we searched high and low for one and didnt have any luck until we asked a local who directed us to one.. This turned out to be Beijings best Duck restuarant with a wait of over an hour and a half...must be worth it! Everyone was dressed up all glam, and awards were hung all over the walls and there was me and liz in our t-shirts and combats! Oh well.. We sat down and were presented with a whole entire Duck..head included! Le Chef then chopped it all up and it was absolutly delicious..pancakes, cucumber..spring onion..mmm! Liz was brave and as it was my birthday she aint the ducks heart.. but quickly downed her drink after! This has been our most expensive meal yet and was over 250 yuan.. but thats only about 25pound anyways.. We then thought we'd try out the nightlife. The bars were actually really nice, and looked alot nicer than the ones at home. They wernt all that busy though and every single one of them had singers on the stage, a bit like karaoke..and then out of the blue a pole dancer got up on the stage...followed by a poledancing man!! In PVC shorts who was about as skinny as the pole! Ewww! We thought we'd get ourselves a nice cocktail by pointing at the pictures from the cocktail list, but I managed to pick out a shot of Tequilla and liz had picked some kind of whiskey cocktail, both were disgusting!! All in all though it was a really good day and a reall eye opener in many ways!! We took our que to leave when the only other westerner (At least 45) bought us roses and made his way over to our table.

Sunday 12th

We have found china difficult in getting around...we were due to take the train to most places but on our first day we discovered that the trains get booked up well in advance. Its not easy to buy any sort of ticket and a lot of it has to be done via a travel Agency. We didn't really want to spend 2 weeks in Beijing so found a cheap domestic flight, which was actually the same price as the trian. We got put in a taxi and just as we were about to leave we realised we had someone elses bag! Not our fault the hostel man put it there! SO we flew to Xi'an....2 hours compared to 11...shame real shame.......