Day 2 in Beijing - got bus to Forbidden City, saw lots of Ming and Qing stuff but we started getting a bit bored and it was full of tourists (mostly Chinese). Garden was nice. Maybe we were just hungry and also bored of walking round as everything is on such a big scale. Anyway then we bought enough food for 2 days (in preparation for tomorrow too) at the back street outlet that we went to yesterday and they were pissing themselves (metaphorically, although we did not know how close we would come to seeing and smelling lots of urine later in our China travels). Tiananmen Square was very Soviet looking and as expected, and we saw (or rather we didn't because of the crowds) some parade as they lowered the flag for the evening. After today we resolved to get bikes wherever possible and not to make any effort to see more Ming and Qing architecture. Its all well and good, but we're minged out.

Day 3 in Beijing - Great Wall. Not much to say except for it was amazing! See photos. My knee was fine too! Poor peasants trying to sell us ice coca coda at various points along the wall. One old guy kept offering us stuff then overtaking us in order to sell it at the next tower!

Day 4 - got bikes and went to Factory 798 Art District. Its in an old disused electronics factory - over about 2 square miles or something. We cycled for about 1 1/2 hours te get there along some three-lane motorway or something and I nearly got run over (thats em). We did see some old people singing and playing folk songs and a young couple in the park on the way. The art place was very 'arty' (it cost a lot to buy a coffee) but very interesting and nice to see. Some of the photographs were quite political (highlighting the massive difference between rich and poor in this place) but still lots of explanations were couched in terms of 'successes and difficulties' of the last 50 years or so. We walked through the hutong (where our hostel is) which stank of piss quite often. Lots of the houses here have no toilets or anything, just public toilets every now and then. The main strip where we were is now backpacker land full of cafes, bars and boutiques so we were not inspired to take any photos except of the mini fire-engine. But Loz met Jackie Chan in the supermarket (see photo) and I was given some free 'white beauty' face cream - I gave it away, as I still like brown actually.

Then we went for Peking Duck. On our budget we had one course between us, whilst everyone around us had loads... And Loz was disappointed though I quite liked it. It came in big fat slices of breast not all shredded like expected. Then early to bed for our early start (on a hard seat train...)