Day 6 - Illegal Parking at The Forbidden City

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Another exhausting day as the intrepid China explorers did Beijing's symbols of the past. We did the quick tour of the Forbidden City before getting ripped off by the bike taxis taking us the short trip from the back gate to Tianenmen Square. Despite the generous tip, the three drivers still chased us out of the drop off area for more money. All in good fun, we headed off for a typical Beijing lunch of refreshing pizza at a Belgian bar. We reckon the food will get more and more localised as we head West, so pizza was a hearty time-out for us. The afternoon we went our own seperate ways, with Stel and Ying Chu heading off to a shopping mall and a Korean movie, myself off to the new and first Lotus showroom in China to dream of the day I'll be able to doll out $120,000 for a tiny Elise for the next road trip. Sinclair headed off to the "art district" to meet with destiny, and Lily met her old school friends for lunch and afternoon tea. One team member, Xixi left us today to head back to her job in Hangzhou, and the rest of us convened for a weird and wonderful pure vegetarian dinner at the Lotus Restaurant.

We are all extremely exhausted today despite the fact that tomorrow we have a 4 hour drive to Datong to see the Hanging Temples and the Grotty Grottos.

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