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We had a smooth start to our Chinese adventure; Rich got delayed by 5 hours and then lost his phone in a taxi…so Shelly sat waiting in the train station for 6 hours! We checked into our hostel - The Happy Dragon after many stares from the locals and headed out to explore Wafujing's night food market. This place was unreal with anything you can imagine on sticks! From scorpians to sea horses and pigs willies!
It was made even more crazy as it was the 60th holiday celebration so it seemed like everyone in china was in Beijing! The next day we went to the summer palace… this place was huge! We felt like celebs as everytime we stopped to look at something, some Chinese person would throw their arm around you and take a picture! We think we only covered about 1/3rd of it in a whole day… but most importantly we found time to get a pedalo out on the palace lake. After the palace we headed to the most famous duck restaurant in Beijing to sample some famous crispy duck (Peking duck translates as Beijing duck…which we didn't know!) The restaurant was 7 floors high and we even had to queue to get in the lift! It was definitely worthwhile though apart from the duck head that was placed on the table in front of us, but Rich still gave it a fair go!
The next day we decided to check out the Olympic stadium, we got to go inside the bird's nest which was awesome. We also saw the water cube and the dancing water fountains (Shelly had little luck in dancing with these fountains which concluded in her looking like a drowned rat!)
Tianemen square can hold 1 million people but apparently at the national holiday this is nowhere near enough… it was rammed! However, the atmosphere was amazing with floats, music and people galore! From there we headed to the forbidden city to catch the guards ceremony they were so regimented, a line of 12 of them looked like only 1 from the side! You wouldn't want to mess with them though, they carry bayonets as standard.
The Great Wall of China day!
Getting up at 6am was soon made worthwhile when we got off the cable car at the top and saw the wall…no wonder it is one of the seven wonders of the world! We walked along it for 3 hours in the hottest sun before it was time to come down…on a LUGE! (toboggan run) awesome! Us and two other guys from Essex came whizzing down from the Great Wall, as we hit the final corner we came flying ro9und just in time to catch a glimpse of Rich ploughing into the china man in front sending him rocketing towards the finish line!!
That night we decided to brave the night market, this place is chaos! Each store sells pretty much the same thing but they times their prices by 6 so some serious bartering was needed. Rich worked his magic and gave them a run for their money.., getting UGG boots, a hand-made scroll and chopsticks all for about 25pounds!
On our final day in Beijing we got brave and decided to risk life and limb on a bicycle tour of Beijing. We managed to survive the road systems - or lack of them, and got pipped or papped by all the locals on our way!
With everything packed in our not-so-light bags we headed for the station to catch our 12 hour sleeper train to Xian. Terracotta warriors here we come!
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