Hello everyone!!

After a long long journey and a stop over in Abu Dhabi we arrived safe and sound in Beijing yesterday morning. We arrived around 9oclock it was gorgeous and sunny! I think we were expecting it to be mayhem when we got to the airport but it was so quiet! The airport was huge and really really modern! Once we had collected our bags we headed to the exit and we were expecting to see our transfer rep to take us to our hotel, but no one was standing in arrivals holding out a sign with our name on!! :( After almost 2 hours... we decided we'd jump a taxi and figure out whats gone wrong once we were settled in our hotel. We tried to pronounce the district in Beijing we were staying in to the taxi driver but obviously our chinese accent isnt really up to scratch so he didnt have a clue!!! he called our hostel and told us he knew were it was so we jumped in.

Our hostel is situated in a small side street in the Doncheng district. In beijing there are places called the "Hutong" areas. It translates roughly to "alleyways! but they are really amazing. They seem like they are the real Beijing behind all the tall modern buildings. So i think were we are staying might be classed as one of the Hutongs, but havnt researched yet so cant be too sure! Either way its really nice, its nice and quiet and in a good location!

Once we had checked in and settled we went for a walk round the area and decided to get some lunch as we were starving! we found a small restaurant on the main road which looked pretty clean so we went in there. Matty had saw people in the airport eating huge bowls of noodles in some kind of broth so he wanted to find something like that. He ordered Pork noodles and i got some Hot and Sour soup in a huge bowl with a ladle like in mr chows! ha... all for £3!

We tried to explain to the recpetionist that our transfer didnot show up but we soon realised that hardly anyone speaks english here!!! We spent the rest of the night sitting on the group balcony next to our room with some YanJing beers (20p each!!) chatting to other travellers. Our tour guide for the next day called our room to let us know she would pick us up at 7:50am so we planned to get an early night. That was until we met these crazy Canadian group of people who liked to talk ALOT! They were telling us how one of the guys had been living in Shanghai for a year learning chinese, his girlfriend had come out to meet him for a few weeks to travel through china, and another guy named Chuck who was crazy. He was 100 miles an hour me and Matt just sat listening as he rambled on and i knew he was thinking the same as me... stop talking just for one second pleeease! ha We later found out that he suffers from ADHD! that ecplains alot ha, i hope he never reads this! But he was really interested he was only 21 and had been to china 3 times already and was fluent in Mandarin. Once he come up for air we made our getawayand headed for bed! From our room we could ear them playing guitar on the balcony!

The next morning we woke up really early and met our tour guide in the lobby. Her name was Cherry, she was only 22 from Xi'ian. She told us that we would take a car to pick up one more person for the group and then the tour would be a walking tour most of the day. We picked up Jade from her hotel and headed for the Temple of Heaven Park. Cherry filled us in on all the details about the park and how it was built in specific ways according to feng shui, ying yang etc. The park was amazing! After chinese residents in the area retire they get into the park for free so most mornings they go to the park to Tai Chi or to sing. We walked past so many people dancing or playing games while dancing. We went to the main Temple first and then onto the 2nd and third. All three were amazing and just walking around the park was so peaceful even though it was so full of people. We walked past a huge group of people maybe 2/2 hundred all sing under a type of pegoda. Once we had left the park we asked Cherry about it and she told us that there are that many people in Beijing that they have to find something to do so they organise amoungst themselves to meet up to sing or dance. We were laughing thinking the equivilent at home is some pisshead dancing through birkenhead park!!

After the Temple of heaven park we caught our first local chinese bus to Tienamen Sqaure and the Forbidden City. We walked through the huge political square and up tot he forbidden city. Once inside we wernt expecting it to be so big! Cherry told us to meet her at the back gate in an hour and we were thinking its not going to take that long to walk across this courtyard? But as we carried on walkling we walked through one gate to the next courtyard and then the next and the next it was huge!!!

We met Cherry at the back gate an hour later and she took us to a local teeny tiny restaurant for some beef noodles! Shje then took us to a park near the Forbidden city where there was a "mountain" in Cherrys words, i think she meant hill, up to the very top to a large temple belong to the latest emporer. From there we could view the whole of the foribdden city it was the most amazing thing we've ever seen!

While we were having lunch Cherry had wrote down loads of things in chinese to help us on our way. She told us to visit a lake near by called Hou Hai lake. So after we said goodbye to Jade and Cherry we jumped on another local bus to the lake. It was about 3 stops down the road. The buses here are 1 yuen per ride (10p). The lake was absolutely beautiful. All around it were bars, restaurants, bicycles for hire etc. So peaceful, so we wandered around for an hour or two before our legs started to give way. After all the travelling yesterday and being out in the heat since 8 oclock this morning we were ready to collapse!

So thats were we are up to at the moment. We're loving it already! The chinese people are really crazy. They spit EVERYWHERE. Oh and fart too! when we were sitting at the airport a uy sat next to me and farted really loud, but didnt event ry to disguise it he just lifting his leg and let one out!!!! haha

But all in all we've been here for just under 36 hours and we've done so much already! We're in Beijing for 3 more days before heading to Shanghai so we will post again before then!

zài jiàn ！( Bye!:) )