Ni Hao!

Hi everyone and welcome to our blog. There has been a bit of a delay in writing this because we have been so busy! We arrived in Beijing on Thursday 26th February after a 10 hour flight and first thing we did was try and check into our hostel. We got pressured into taking a tuk tuk ride to the train station and agreed the price at 30 huan (£3) after about 10 mins of this guy pedaling two of us and our massive rucksacks in a tuk tuk which was originally made for one, he pulled over and accused us of breaking it. He then tried to charge us $30!!! and said that was the agreed price. Alistair and this guy argued in the street for about 15 mins until a guard started looking over and i had to tell him to stop as i had visions of us spending our first night in a chinese jail!

When we eventually found our hostel (we were lost for a few hours), it was down a hutong which is an old chinese street. It was good because we got to see how real people lived and had not been affected by the tourist trade. Hardly anyone down the hutongs can speak english and even pointing to our hostel on a chinese map seemed a mystery to them. When we finally arrived at the hostel, it's "authentic" atmosphere was a bit too much as the toilets were just a hole in the ground and the whole bathroom area just smelt like stale wee. I don't think they were ever cleaned and you are given flip flops to wear whilst you're in there which isn't a good sign to what might be on the floor!

After we unpacked on the first night we decided to step back in time and walk down the hutong. There are always lots of street sellers with big pots cooking all sorts of street meat for about 50p. One big pot in particular is a variety of intestines and organs which smells so bad , you have to hold your breath as you walk past. We ended up walking a bit to far and ended up on a secluded street, which seemed ok at first until we noticed sex toys through the small doorways. The lights on the street got fewer and fewer and we saw men lurking in the dark and hiding in empty doorways when we got near. I don't know whether it was the red light district or whether the men just didn't want to be seen buying things but we definately didn't go back!

Its a regular thing here to wake up to the lovely sound of someone hoicking up in the bathroom. Men do this here a lot and constantly spit in the street. I think the idea is that the louder you do it, the more of a man you are! Thats how it appears anyway because i'm sure there is no need for it. You kind of get used to it and we haven't been hit on the feet with it yet so thats good news!

After a few nights in that hostel, we moved to one further down the hutong called 365 Inn, which had a lot of westerners staying there. It was a lot nicer and we really enjoyed our stay there. However, one night we dropped something down the side of the bed and when we went down to pick it up we found used condoms under the bed!! mmmm hygienic!!

On Sunday we went on a trip to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. There are thirteen tombs altogether, dotted about the foothills from past emporers. They excavated one of them and the items inside were destroyed because they weren't preserved properly so we could only see one of them. The Great Wall was amazing and we hiked up to the tallest tower to see the views. There was also 80 year old women hiking up there too, obviously only stopping to stare at us! We could only visit certain sections which is a shame becasuse there will be much better views than the ones that we saw, but it was very beautiful. We then had two special "free" trips to jade and silk factories. We thought we were going to see how the silk worms (which Alistair ate on a former trip to South Korea) made the silk and the process it went through, however they started reeling off the prices of quilts as soon as we got in there so no such luck.

On Tuesday we went to the Forbidden City. The different sections of it were different areas the emporer would relax or get changed etc. It got a bit boring after a while because all the sections seemed to be the same. It was too big for us to get round it all in time before it closed. When we came out of the city we noticed how many police there were around. There was some sort of diplomats arriving and they closed off loads of roads. Alistair then thought it necessary to take a picture of the SWAT team's badge by creeping closer and closer to one of them until he nearly had the camera in his face. I swear we're going to get arrested before this trip is up!!

Things here are relatively cheap as long as you shop around. To have tea and drinks for both of us we usually pay a fiver, however we went for the "best peking duck in Beijing" and it set us back £25! It wasn't even nice and we spent the rest of the day feeling sick because of all the fat. The restaurant was nice though, it was like a big ballroom with chandliers and the chef came to your table to carve the duck.

The whole thing has been a bit of a culture shock at first, but we are used to it a bit more now. People point and stare at us all the time and some people ask whether they can have their pictures took with us. I don't think they have ever seen ginger hair or boobs! It feels like we're celebrities and you always catch someone trying to take a photo of you on their phone without us noticing. A lot of the Chinese people are here on tour group holidays from rural areas and we have been told that they will have never seen westerners before. If you smile and say hello to them they get embarrassed and start laughing.

Next stop Xi'an!

Love Shem & Al xxxxx