Monday : sunny

It was a very quiet night and morning at the hostel, the noisy people must of checked out yesterday.

We left our room and looked to the hostel for some breakfast. We both chose beef burger for breakfasts. Yum yum. The hostel has a pretty good menu and it's cheap too most meals are under $5.

After a burger breakfast we paid to stay more nights, and booked a tour to go see the wall on Wednesday.

Then we hit the streets, and made our way to the subway. We were heading for the Summer Palace first off. It was used by the Emperor as a royal garden. They didn't have to go far it's only 12kms away from the centre of Beijing.

We had to change trains to get there, and it was only a 30c trip for over 15 stops. The station was just around the corner from the palace entry gates. We bought our tickets and went into the gardens.

We tackled our first hill and we struggled to get to the top. One look out to the horizon would tell us why we were struggling. The air was filthy, we were pretty high up and had a 180 deg view. We barely could see anything outside the park walls. There were mountains off in the distance, and all we could see was the top outline of the mountains. I don't know if the air pollution is usually this bad all the time. I would hope not.

It's sad to see regardless, the pollution will just get worse and worse if China doesn't clean up their act Now. What we are seeing is terrible, I would hate to of lived here, and to of seen the air turn from good to shocking. Kim and I have been coughing ever since Shanghai, that's when the smog hit us. I now know why all the locals cough so much. I wonder how many deaths or illnesses are cause by this dirty air? Or are they covered up here too, like everything bad that happens in China.

When we got our breath back we walked around a big temple that was up near the top of the hill. We looked out over the huge lake up there, that a workforce of 100,000 laborers made. There were large sets of stone stairs leading down to 3 more levels then eventually down to the lake. It was busy down there, we continued around the lake to a few nice sitting areas.

We thought that instead of getting lost in the maze of stone pathways we would do a lap of the lake, and take in some sights that way. It was a good walk quite a few old nicely curved bridges. Weird things that we noticed were signs saying to protect the relics and then signs saying to protect the railings. Also People were swimming and fishing in the lake when there were signs saying not to, yet security did nothing to enforce it. Instead they sat at a park bench watching the people swim and fish and gawked at us as we walked by.

Once we finished our big walk we left the summer palace and headed for the Olympic stadium by train. It took 3 trains to get there, 13 stops and still cost only 2yuan.

The stadium was a short walk from the station, strange looking building that's for sure, from certain angles it looked like a metal Ayres rock. Apparently it's the largest steel structure in the world. We walked halfway around the stadium then stopped by a lake for an hour or so to have a break, and to wait for the stadium lights to come on. It lights up alright at night, the swimming centre probably looks better though.

We made our way back to the station then took 4 trains 15 stops to Tiananmen square. The square was on lock down there were police and military everywhere. We had to dodge two lady scammers who wanted us to come back with them for some dinner. We walked in the direction back to our hostel, past all the lit up buildings.

Along the way we stopped off at a small place to get some food. We ordered dumplings and beef noodle soup, the chef was filthy snorting then spitting and wiping his nose on his uniform. We left the soup and were hesitant in eating the dumplings also but they were too tasty to leave. The restaurant was in a great position, pity about the unhygienic chef.

We continued our walk home and stopped off at a shop to get some water. We then got cleaned up and chilled out in the hostel courtyard before bed.