Keeping the fans waiting

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Well guys here's the latest from far far away!

Beijing

Right it's now the 20th so I definitly can't remember what happened day by day but hopefully I can remember at least a bit (which also might be difficult due the amount of brain cells I've been destroying over the last fortnight). So, basically we got to the youth hostel in a little back alley in Beijing and it was busy. The little bar was full of young white people, it was a new experience wandering into the hostel with a lot of 'big eyes' staring at you, who's the new guests?

After sorting ourselves out we headed downstairs to the bar quickly as happy hour including food just started, so to make full use of the 70 yuan (quai) we just spent each we managed to get onto our 5th pint before the 2 hour time limit on free beer and food ran out. After coming back from the loo I find Bex has agreed to play a drinking game with Bertina (A German girl living in the hostel while she finds an apartment), Brian (an American guy) and Chris. Chris went to Beijing on a holiday for a week from training with Shaolin monks at a kung-fu school and we met his friends doing the same thing. Pretty cool.

Pretty sure the next day was spent nursing the hangover and meeting new guys from the kung-fu school, Vlako from Croatia (sporting a mohawk and kept sane with B52's), Charles from France (been training there for like 2 years but has a syndrome named after him because of his inactivity the last couple of months) and Derek (an Englishman and a gentleman who enjoys ball scrubs at Chinese bath houses). A day later Yogi (the most impulsive and persuasive person you'll ever meet) joined the crew freshly partyed from India.

We went to the Blue Frog bar on the Monday to take advantage of the 2 for 1 offer on burgers. This was an excellent reccomendation from Bex's friend Mark because the burgers were flipping massive and delicious. I had to order the biggest one possible which turned out to be almost a foot in height! Somehow managed, after squashing the thing, to fit it in my gob. I'm sure that wasn't the prettiest sight but it was worth it! Bex didn't have that much trouble... (bigger mouth ) Cheers!!

Day after we went and did the old Forbidden Palace. First thing you see at the entrance is a giant picture of Mao, which kinda sticks in your head... You remember again that your in a Communist country you don't understand and you are very very small and powerless here. The many gates you have to go through before you get to the actual entrance to the Palace are beautiful and the walls are flipping massive and very red. It was chappin da balticanos that day and you're outside all the time for this particular attraction so we did 3 hours of looking around but regretably didn't climb the man made hill at the rear of the palace which had a temple and a view of the entire 'city'. The 'city' was absolutely massive though, and seemed to have a royal chamber for just about any random thing the Emporer decided to do. I know it sounds weird but I really liked the steps leading up to the buildings, often there were two or three tiers and some had stone carved slabs of rock going the whole height of them and were covered with intricate carvings. The drain holes coming out from the steps were tens of enormous stone dragon heads and I could imagine if it rained there would be so many jets of water shooting out from their mouths. Unfortunatly it didn't rain.

For a couple of days after that we hung around the hostel area of Sanlitun. We experienced Yogi's expertise in bargaining (after all he is from India) and learnt a few tricks along the way at the Yashou market (not THE silk market but A silk market). As many of the kung-fu guys were coming to an end of their time off, and Derek was actually leaving and going back to England we had a good couple of nights out in the hostel and a local (pretty huge) club called Vics. After many had left we ended up hanging out with Yogi and Chris. Fun and B52's aside we got to witness some forms, kicks and chops from the guys. Yogi broke a brick with a a karate chop, the very same brick that had left Chris with a cut and bruised little finger... Charles and Vlako had infected us with the B52 virus before leaving, the drink had become so impossible not to order that the bar staff happily greeted us in the morning jokily 'hello, how are youuu..... B52?'.

We went to see the drum and bell towers of Beijing, basically old time keeping buildings which housed, yes thats right, drums and a bell. A few rings or beats every day across the city let everyone know what time it is and we got to see a live drum performance which I think in the past marked the end of the day and the beginning of the night. It was pretty impressive (apologies for the terrible filming skills, I was just getting into the beat!!)

The next couple of days and nights were spent hanging out and eating/drinking, I know it sounds a bit boring but we met a lot of people and just generally farted around with them, it was a good laugh. Are local haunt was a bar named 1F (first floor), I must say that this bar was THE expat hotspot, and the closest thing we've seen to a pub in a while. In the hostel we met Christian who has been working for the past two years as an English teacher in Taiwan and is very knowledgable about China so we learned many things from him. And he whipped me at chess on more than one occasion, even on my new chess set which has added a few more kilos to the bag.

We went with Christian to the Capital Museum, where we saw loads of old stuff. Some very old stuff and some very very old stuff. Old things are fun to look at. It was interesting though, definitly a good way to learn some Chinese history. They really don't like the Japanese by the way.

Update 02-02-2012

As my mum has most lovingly pointed out, although we added a picture of the wall we actually didn't write anything about it... duhhhh. Ok so the wall is like this really big wall that the Chinese built over ridiculously steep and high mountains to keep those stupid Mongorians from attacking their shitty. Choosing to make the steep climb up to the wall instead of the cost of the cable car, I half died walking up due to the ever existent lack of endurance and the cold which has kept a grip of me for the last two weeks (could hardly breathe basically). The wall was amazing to see as we walked along a long part of the wall that had been restored. We also managed to go out of bounds and see some of the crumbly bits. But at the same time this wall step conquering was quite tiring. After 4 hours of pottering around going up and down steps (step aerobics Chinese style) we headed down the hill (me with shaky calf muscles and weak ankle... hurray) to grab our free lunch with the rest of the coach. Next dayyyyy....

We went all together to the Summer Palace as well which is not so much a Palace, rather a massive area with a hill and a lake covered in many ornate temples and pavillions, bridges and parks. It was where the Emporer and his concubines or high up members of the dynasty could chill out and do a bit of governing. Here was another place which didn't make you proud to be British... again. There were constant remarks on the plaques which explained what the buildings were that also stated things like "burned down in 1856 by the savage Anglo French invaders" or something to that extent. It seems we just travelled around the World in the past and pretty much destroyed places and killed people...

Basically almost the entire Palace complex was burned down and had to be rebuilt, but everything was rebuilt to be exactly the same and they still today are constantly touching up the intricate paint-work or working on the buildings. So it's a really beautiful complex, we walked around the lake and over the 10 or so bridges, some of which were designed for some reason to be the steepest bridges possible, they were ridiculously curved arching high up into the sky. I wondered why and Bex says "just because they can". I think she's right.

That night Christian rounded up a few more volunteers and with a hungry group 8 strong we went out on the hunt for Beijing's biggest pizza. If you just look at the beer pumps they have in this place they have Kronenberg or Carlsburg, the other pump doesn't have a badge. The price difference was a difference of 30 quai between the non advertised beer and Kronenberg, luckily we realised after paying two rounds at 120 which could have been 30. Cheeky bastards!! Between the 8 of us we polished off 2 large pizzas of 22 inches AND 1 medium of only 18 inches, absolutely stuffed woddled off back to the hostel. I'm SURE it was down to the fact that we were accompanied by two swedes and two danish guys that the pizza's disappeared, vikings and all that malarky...ahem (Duncan is now proudly claiming he ate 5 pieces, AND crusts, to everyones 3 or 4... glutton).

The last day was spent getting the last bargains in at the Yashou silk market. Duncan managed to score a pair of Converse for me and the all important lucky charm, a happy cat (also dubbed high five cat by Chris). The high five cat is one thing you admit you don't want at first, but then secretly your brain is telling you you're not going to leave the shop without one. Duncan bargained with guns blazing to the result of the insults 'big eyes' and 'foreign devil' in Chinese, but he did get what he wanted in the end. For some reason around the shopping area in Sanlitun there are shed loads of Nigerians wanting to sell you weed, it remains a mystery to me why we walked around one corner after just been offered the stuff and there's a policeman with sniffer dog minding their own buisness around the next. Corruption at its best.

As the trains were apparantly all full going towards Qufu (which we had decided to visit to catch up with the guys from the Shaolin school) we had to settle with taking a bus. The bus journey took 8 hours and introduced us to a new way of reaching your destination...which in China is just being dropped off in the middle of the turn-off on the motorway, good luck!

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