Landed!!

Hey to everyone reading this. We are here safely and having a fantastic time. On Thursday night we took an evening walk past the Forbidden City and Tiana'men Sq. It was very cold and we all bought some coats, and was actually snowing on Thursday. We also had some v. traditional Chinese food which invovled Peking duck! Yesterday we went back and actually went into the City, it was amazing and felt very strange to be somewhere so peaceful in such a large City. We them went to the Sq again and like typical tourists gor lots of pictures, which I promise will shortly be posted. We then went to Baihan Park which offers great views of the City, aside from the smog. Beijing is a neon lit metropolis with 24/7 night life and huge buildings. Driving down some of the 12 lane Streets in Centrel Beijing feels like Gotham City at times!

Last night we ate some amazing Korean food which you BBQ yourselves at your table, we had Pork, Chicken, Beef and lots vegetables and strange sauces. It was really great. We then discovered the night life for ourselves and went to 3 bars, got the beers (Tsingtao) in and had a Friday night Beijing style. We got in at 4 in the morning. That speaks for itself.

Six hours later we were picked up and heading over to the Great Wall. We took a Cable Car up and walked up to the highest part of the Wall, this offers great views of the Wall, which snakes its way through the hills very majestically. After some tourist snapshots we headed back down the top of the Cable Car, where you can take a Luge run down to the bottom. At first we thought it was a bit tame, that feeling didn't last long as if you didn't break on the corners, you could flip over. It was a lot of fun.

We went back to Beijing City for dinner which was Hotpot, a small pot with vegatables and flavours in which when brought to a boil means you can place stripes of meat in and boil them yourself. The flavours were interesting to say the least. A short drive back and we arrived back at the hostel where we shall remain for tonight.

J x

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