Beijing

We arrived after our train pretty tired, as expected. Seriously, those hard seat trains overnight are one thing I really don't want to remember from this trip. Horrific. Anyway, we arrived which was the main thing. We headed out to try and get a taxi to our hostel - the queue was long, and when we finally got to the end all the drivers were seemingly refusing to pick us up and instead opting for a Chinese fare. Easier on their part I'm sure, and we sympathise, but it wasn't really working for us. So we chucked our stuff in the boot of one of the taxis before he realised we didn't speak mandarin. Rough deal. We showed him some maps and the address of our hostel, he seemed to take no notice but got us where we needed to be anyway, happy days. Taxis in China are insanely cheap too, and the subway in Beijing is a standard fare of 20p - I'm sure London won't be so kind.

Beijing was cool, we did alot of the usual touristy bits - Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace. They were all really impressive, but at the same time they were all slightly underwhelming mainly because they were so unbelievably busy. It's hard to really take in how great something is while there you're surrounded by Chinese tourists poking their sunbrellas in your face and trying to barge past you. Don't get me wrong, they were all really good, and I'm glad I saw them, but they certainly weren't highlights. We checked out a couple of smaller gardens and parks as well which were great.

We also headed off to the Olympic City which was good, had more people asking to take photos of us. At one point they were queueing up. I'd hate to be famous and get that everywhere I went - must be torture. The area around our hostel was amazing too which had lots of pedestrain areas with some really nice shops and stalls etc. Was good for a wander. We also hit another fake market like the one in Shanghai, only much bigger. This was serious stuff. The clothes floors were like TK Maxx on steroids. I grabbed some more fake shoes and a wallet and some other small souvenirs. They had everything there. It was the one place in Beijing that language wasn't a problem either, they could hassle people in any language. People kept talking to us in Spanish - I'll take that, the tan is still prime. They can also get pretty aggressive at these markets though, we saw one guy get kicked, and a few women called me an idiot when I didn't take a pair of "converse" that had glue all over them. She protested "but it's just glue", as if that would make me buy them. What she failed to realise is that I wanted my new shoes without glue all over them. She was angry - I took refuge at another persons shop and the same thing happened. It worked until I bought some shoes from a nice lady that didn't have glue on her shoes - customer satisfaction right there.

Anyway, the highlight of Beijing was the Great Wall. We had been a bit unsure about which section of the wall to visit (there are lots - it's pretty big apparently). Most people go to Badaling - we were sure this would be like everything else in Beijing and too busy so we chose to go to Mutianyu, which was meant to be quieter but a bit further away and more expensive. It turned out that our hostel wasn't doing that trip the day we wanted to go, and language was far too much of a barrier at the other tourist shops to even contemplate using them. In the end we went for the trip the hostel was running - they called it the ancient wall and the secret wall. One section was part-restored, the other unrestored. The names were doing nothing for me and we were a bit hesitant as obviously we couldn't find any information beyond what the hostel were giving us (and they were never going to tell us it was crap). In the end we took the plunge and honestly it's one of the best bits of luck we've had on the whole trip. The trip was incredible. The wall we saw was actually really near to Badaling, but there must have been about 5 or 6 people we saw in three hours that weren't a part of our tour group. It was great to be able to enjoy this away from the crowds. The weather was also great too (which was lucky as we were so close to going the following day - when it rained all day long).

We trekked for three hours up and down (it is a long way up!) and saw some of the wall in it's original state which was really cool as well. Felt pretty authentic and exactly what we were looking for. Satisfied, we returned that day and feasted on some Beijing roast duck (peking duck), which was also great. Good day.

That's pretty much Beijing covered (overall we loved it, definitely up there with the highlights), next stop Japan. We got our flight from Beijing airport bright and early after waking up at 4am, we touched down in Tokyo at about 1pm. Japan is the last country we go to before heading back home, which we're both looking forward to quite a bit now! Here are loads of photos!!

Here is a beauty from Four Tet. Man has skills.