Old meets new, Tiananmen Square to The Birds Nest.

---

So its my turn to write the blog, so beer in hand and with Tomo on the opposite bunk getting Chinese lessons from our very nice and helpful Korean room mate here it goes!

Today was has been much more successful than yesterday but this is probably down to our state of mind more than anything. Tomo apologies for his negativity, but our success did in fact start last night. After the blog had been written and finally uploaded we headed out for some food. The area near our hostel in Beijing had been transformed for the evening with many vendors selling street food in which you snack, buying many dishes from different sellers who shout franticly to attract your attention. An hour or so was enough and we were still shattered from the travelling so bed was the order of the day/evening.

Today we headed to Tiananmen Square which similar to the forbidden palace is on an epic scale. Whilst relaxing and working out how exactly we were going to get to the Olympic park we met Kevin who was going to become our “special friend”. After talking to him for a few minutes he lead us to his studio where as he was our “special friend” he gave us a gift which consisted of our names written in Chinese script but on the proviso we bought one of his paintings in return. Three mug prices later we agreed to just pay for the scripts as we had got some valuable info about the trains to shanghai and a rather nice souvenir.


Once that was over we headed on a very modern and well air conditioned subway to the Olympic park. The birds nest was pretty impressive and along with the water cube were good fun to look around and explore. Having improved our bartering skills with the kite sellers outside it was time to head home. Next stop The Great Wall!

Pete

---