Beijing, Beijing, Beijing....

The train was the perfect way to arrive in Beijing and take in its massive scale. Richard was astounded at the amount of change from his last trip to the city 4 years ago. The Olympics played a big part in changing the city and everything seemed brand new and sparkling clean.

Within a few hours we decided that we loved the place. It is one of the coolest cities we have ever visited. Tenae thinks she could live here for years getting fat on the amazing Chinese food. To make our stay even more amazing our hostel was one of the best we have ever stayed in. It was located in the heart of a tradition hutong. Here is a pic of Tenae in the hostel courtyard coming up with a plan of action.

On our first full day we took advantage of the free bikes at our hostel and explored the local area. Here is a pic of Rich cruising on his made to measure bike outside the Forbidden City.


Many of the old ramshackle hutongs have been rebuilt. Here is a pic of Rich cruising the streets of a brand new area...... not even tarmacked yet. We enjoyed getting lost and exploring areas like this during our time in Beijing.


Food, food, food......... we love the Chinese food. Here are a few of us enjoying one of the night markets.

Mmm, time for some desert.


Not that we loved all the food. These little fellas were still moving. Scorpions and seahorses - nice!


We spent hours wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere.


It seems that China is suffering some kind of Mao mania. You can find his image on all kinds of tourist tack. Rich brought a Mao watch at the market, he bartered the lady down from 350Y (35 quid) to 30Y. What a bargain - the watch lasted a whole day before his mechanical waving hand fell off.

On our third day in the city we visited the Summer Palace and the Olympic stadium on the outskirts of the city. This was the worst day for our camera battery to run out. We both had goose pimples on entering the Olympic Stadium and we remembered back to last summer when we both sat glued to the TV watching Ussain Bolt destroy his competition in the 100 metres sprint.

Yesterday we visited the Great Wall of China with our Mongolia travel buddies; Eric and Ingrid. We went with a local tour company who took us to a less touristy section of the wall. We arrived at the wall after a 2 hour drive. We only saw two other groups of Chinese ramblers who greeted us cheerfully on the walk in. Here is a pic of the four of us - blown away by this beauty and scale of the wall.


It really takes your breath away. It was also a great hangover cure as the night before the four of us were out till 1:30am at the Karaoke bars of Beijing.


Yep - we all got a bit snap happy with the camera's.


This section of the wall has not been rebuilt or touched up in 600 years. This meant there was lots of scrambling up and down tricky sections of wall. Right up Tenae's street!



After the wall Rich got his wish and we went out for Peking duck ...... in Peking! This restaurant was so pretty.


Unfortunately our time in China is short so we have decided to leave Beijing and head south. There is so much to see in this vast nation. We are heading to Guilin in the South in order to sample a little bit of rural China. Our train leaves at 7pm tonight and it should take about 1 day and a half to get there. We are both sold on rail travel now. It's the best way to travel. Fingers crossed for a nice resturant cart!