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Nehow :) no idea how you write that in English but it sounds like that (hello in Chinese). Have a stinking cold (serves me right for escaping winter) and a temperature but have had a lovely but exhausting day all the same topped up by the all-powerful Anadin!!
Today we set off at 8:30 on a bus for the temple of heaven, as usual we got stared at a lot on the way..everywhere we go we get stared at as basically all the other tourists are Chinese tourists and so it's quite a sight to see 8 westerners wondering around! The temple of heaven is where the emperors used to go and worship and was off limits to the public until the mid 1920s. It was absolutely lovely in the morning sunshine and the park surrounding it was full of people singing, dancing, playing shuttlecock, playing cards, knitting and basically having a great time. Of course I joined in a tai chi class full of retired but surprisingly nimble Chinese ladies and men. Cassie and I had fun copying them and they were very pleased to have some young faces at the back! We only stopped when a humongous group of tourists started taking pictures of us..another regular occurrence. Yesterday I was grabbed by two girls to have a picture with a random bronze statue and every time we stop for Vivian to tell us about something, we become surrounded by people with their cameras snapping pics and posing behind us - very unnerving but quite funny as we're taking pictures of them whilst they're taking them of us! The temple was lovely with dragons everywhere and building painted bright reds, greens and blues and all the numbers of bricks, steps and exits in multiples of 7,8 and 9 (the lucky numbers). It was just such a nice park area for people to relax and Lauren (an ex dancer) decided to grab me at one point to force me into a tango with a tango class...I learnt that when I'm actually with a proper dancer leading me I cannot follow and I look rather hopeless..hoping the video never comes out.
After leaving pension paradise we went to the pearl market to have a look around and have some lunch. I don't think I have ever seen so many fakes so cheap in my entire life and we were grabbed left, right and centre by every vendor. Was very pleased to barter a spare camera battery in the technology centre down to 80 yuan from 260, but almost got stuck with a pair of fake beats headphones as I told them I'd only pay 30 yuan to put them off as I didn't want them and they chased me down the aisle to accept my offer?!
We then went to Tianamen square where Mao's pickled body is. It was very serious and slightly unnerving with loads of soldiers and policemen around but I didn't get a chance to see Mao, maybe next time. It did strike me as pretty bonkers about how biased Chinese history is again as our CEO talked all about how wonderful Mao was and how he is seen as a saviour of the people and you could see tourists worshipping him everywhere..couldn't say much about that out there but still very weird how revered he is in a similar way to Stalin but to a much greater extent..don't know if I'll ever get over how strange it is but oh well :)
Next we walked to the forbidden city and saw where the empowers lived and where their concubines lived in a prison-like palace next to the main palace. It was really interesting and pretty but the smog was creeping in and it became a bit eerie! There was only really a shell of all the buildings left as mao had had most of it stripped but still good to see, also saw where the last emperor hung himself in a pagoda on a hill :) Some of it had been repainted for the Beijing Olympics but it was impressive how most of the buildings had held up naturally despite being ransacked by the Japanese frequently over the years! I think that i now have far too many photos of very similar looking chinese buildings so its gonna be fun trying to tell the difference later.
Our feet were killing us by this point as we'd been walking around all day with only a 15 minute stop for lunch so we were pretty horrified when we saw the queue for the buses outside. I have to say that so far most of the Chinese tourists we've encountered haven't been the politest and they shove you around no end to get to the front. There was a terrifying Chinese bus lady in charge of the queue who was screaming at people much to the amusement of the male taxi drivers! Half an hour after waiting in the queue the bus finally arrived and we were shoved from all sides to get on..pretty terrifying! Also I've noticed that despite the supposed reverence to the elderly, no one gets up for them on the buses and the children get all the seats!! Tess will understand my outrage at this as the reserved seats always stress me out!
We then went to snack street where they were selling every type of animal imaginable deep fried as a snack. Seahorses, stomach lining (DISGUSTING), scorpions, tarantulas, brains, bats, geckos and zillions more were there and it was gross but kinda fascinating :) we then squished onto a bus where half the group didn't fit being too tall..mwahaha..and then walked for another 20 mins to the supermarket to get some food for tomorrow's train journey. The lady at the till was really mean and flung all my food through AND confiscated my pears as I hadn't marked them properly..was not too impressed! We then went for dinner at a nice restaurant and had traditional Beijing Peking duck..yummyy :) also had asparagus, sizzling beef, duck skin, sweet and sour pork etc. I love Chinese food. I was very upset when I discovered that prawn toast is in fact a Western Chinese dish..wahh I know what I'll be stocking up on when I'm home!
Back at the hotel now and planning a relaxing day tomorrow with a wonder around the city before catching our first of many 18 hour overnight trains..YEY!
Will update you in a couple of days,
Lots of love, Flo x x x
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YKW Sounds utterly amazing!!!