Ni-Hao!! Yes we are learning the loco!!

Having an awesome time out here - done so much already!!

Landed in Beijing Wednesday at silly o'clock and got a dodgey taxi to the Hostel (oops!) The drivers over here are absolutely nuts! and the cyclists are even worse!! There really are 10 million bicycles in Beijing!!

Hostel was quite cool - the room was a bit dingey tho and our beds were split into different rooms, we took our turns on the bed of terror!! Had our first "bug in the shower" encounter on the 2nd night - in true girly style we screamed and ran around the room but redeemed ourselves by making a rather nifty bug trap with our swiss army knifes and a bottle!!! we moved rooms after a couple of nights and the new one was much better!!

Spent the first day just roaming around the Hutong area which gave us a taste of the old Beijing - such a contrast to the new commercial areas! Bumped into some Chinese students on our way to Tiananmen Square who wanted to show us some of their artwork at a gallery so we made a divert...the art was amazing and we we're like "wow"! this one particular girl called Amy had some really good stuff on show and wanted us to buy some pieces, her work was so good infact that we've seen it all over Beijing since! Turns out Amy was not an artist; she was a liar!! and all the work we saw were prints!!! Ha ha!

Took a stroll to Tiananmen Square and a hike around the Forbidden City on the 2nd day which was really cool.

Headed off to The Great Wall on Friday - this was amazing and i would recommend anyone to put it on their "things to do before you die" list. We went on a 4 hour trek along the wall at Mutianyu, away from the touristy areas of Baldling so got to see a lot more of the good stuff!! Went to the Night Food Market in the eve which was extraordinary!! they were serving up starfish, sea snake, grasshopper, scorpion...nice. We didnt feel the need to try a frog like Ross did.

The next day was spent at the Lama Temple - this was cool, they have the biggest Buddha statue in China here, its 18m high and carved out of one piece of wood!! very impressive! We took the subway back to the Hostel and chilled out on the roof terrace before heading to see the acrobatics show, again, this was amazing, we we're in pure shock at the way these crazy chinese people were bending!! well worth a visit! (never assume you're going to be in the nice theatre - see pics below!)

Today, we got up at 6.30am to go to the morning market and bought some chopsticks!! ha! then we headed over to Silk Street market - loads of ridiculously cheap clothes and silk here. Our American friend Stacey almost wet her pants here!! she bought everything that wasn't worth buying and spent 2 hours haggling for polyester mix silk sheets!!! We then went to the Temple of Heaven and chilled in one of the garden areas for a bit where we listened to some Chinese choir which was funny!! The star of the choir was AWFUL - but the crazt chinese seemed to love her squeeky shreeks!! After this we headed off to Beihai Park which is a massive island in the middle of a lake - they have a Drum Tower here at the top of Yong An Temple and the views accross the city are wicked and they beat the drums every half hour - its a really cool place and very relaxed compared to the rest of the crazy city!

So far, we're loving it! This place couldn't be any more different to back home so its been a bit nuts at times and a massive culture shock! The Chinese love us, they stop us in the streets and tell us we are beautiful and ask for pictures with us!! Especially gem with her sexy blue eyes!!!

Tuesday was spent at the Summer Palace. It took us 2 hours by tube and bus to get there, but only cost 35p!! we're getting pretty nifty at getting around!!! The Palace settings were really nice - it was good to see a lake and some trees and breath in some clean air!!
We left the Summer Palace and headed back to the Hostel where Stacey was looking after our backpacks - when we arrived, Stacey was nowhere to be seen and her room was empty!! After a brief panic, we found them behind the desk in reception! We thought she had done a runner!!!
This was our final day in Beijing and that evening we left (with massive bags on our backs!) and headed to the station to catch the 12hr overnight train to Shanghai.