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Jet lag......uuurrrrggghhhh
I wake up at 5am wide awake, too early to get up. I must have been awake until gone 7. I eventuly woke up at 10am. Im sooo tired still, but we are on holiday so time cannot be lost!
We are heading to the Forbidden City and Tianaman Square and to get there we need to get the metro.Im impressed that a metro ticket here is only 20 Yuan (about 20p), sure beats London at 4 quid a go, but I guess the cheapness is to make up for them not having the "Boris Bikes" (there are no Boris Bikes in Brixton either though)
The Fobidden City is huge and pretty impressive, we spent about 3 hours there. The detail and the work that has gone in to it is amazing. It is very grand. After we are done with the City we head to Tianaman Square, I thought this had a very powerful feel to it and really to me summed up what China is. A strong governanace is felt and its flanked all around by the Chinese flag and the Military are there and they look mean!
By the way, this day is possibly the coldest I have ever been, It was biting cold and easily minus 10!
After a few photos we head off to find somewhere to eat and wander into a restaurant, sit down and look at the menu. we are faced with soup, but not any kind of soup, sheeps eyes and cow balls...... we leave!
the 2nd restaurant we go too is more our thing, but very pricey we think 320y, 32 Brit pounds for sweet and sour chicken, 400Y, 40 quid for beef mushroom, we start to think about leaving but I find it had to believe that spring rolls are 111Y, 11 quid, then is dawns on me....... these are the menu numbers for each dish!!!!
so, we stay and order. Sally orders a soup that is large enough to feed the 5000 and we get a few other dishes. I think the entire bill comes to about a fiver!
We then head back to the hostel as Hulan is picking us up at 6pm. When Hulan comes we are introduced to his son, daughter in law and grand daughter who is just too cute. We drive for about 20 mins to a restuarant for our Peking duck. We let the family order and they order lots of dishes with obviously the duck, which is too die for!
I love how the family pronounce Jen as Gwen!
Also some little odd sweets. We have beer here and the chinese cheers before every swig, which after the 5th times gets a litle annoying and tedious , anyway I ask what some strange dish is and it turns out to be ducks tongue.........so I try. It is awful I cant even swallow it, posssibly the worst thing(along with jellied eels and wheatgrass) I have ever put in my mouth. The family laugh at this.
After dinner we are taken on a abit of a night tour of the city. We get to see the Olympic stadium which is a really cool building. i hope my photos pick up how good it is, but the camera wasnt liking the darkness.
When we get back to the hostel we hang out with our swedish rock stars and have a game of foos ball. Im crap and let every goal in, poor Peter on my team was really a one man player. I deffo wasnt Barcalona put it this way I was more Bromley United (or possibly Liverpool)
Anyway after a few beers we head to bed...... I hope my jet lag has packed it's bags and left! xx
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