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Published: September 16th 2007
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After a good night sleep in our Mongolian hotel we were up early (again) to catch our train to China. Our journey was little over 24hrs on the train and after the state of our last train we were prepared for anything. Thankfuly when we borded we could see the cabin was clean and we found out we were sharing with an Irish lad who was with a similar travel group to us and a mongolian girl just traveling to China, thankfuly without all of her family and neighbours and pets! The view from this train was just stunning, leaving the green mountains and plains of Mongolia we passed just north of the Gobi desert which took the cabin temp to just over 30C, and you could just see for miles and miles and as we got closer to China the scenery changed to mountains with rivers flowing through them, just stunning. We passed through mongolian and Chinese customs easily although there was a 3 hr wait on the Chinese side as they changed the wheels on the train so they will run on the Chinese tracks (the tracks in China are narrower than on the mongolian side so China can
control what can travel in!). We arrived at Beijing railway station and battled our way out to find our hostel which we booked before we left the UK. We decided to book the closest hostel which was just over the road from the station which was a good idea as everything is much further away than it looks on the map. We checked in without a problem and our room was just like a travel inn, our home for the next 5 days. After a shower we decided to have a bit of a wander and we made our way to Tianamen square which was only 2 blocks from our hostel so we guessed it would take us about 20 mins. About 50 mins later we were still walking when some friendly chinese came up to us and started chatting asking us where we were going, we told them and they said to follow them they would take us there so we wandered down this side street that didn't quite seem right so we said we were ok and they left us only for them to jump out of their art shop 200m down the road shouting come in and
see our paintings. We realised we had been taken the wrong way so laughed and turned round and headed to the square. Tianemen square is big but that is all you can realy say about it. It has Maos mauselium built in it which was closed for renovations, in fact most of Beijing is being renovated for the Olypics next year. It was nice to see people flying kites which they attach lights on at night which is pretty cool but all in all a bit of a let down. So we headed back to he hostel as it was geting late and we were due to meet the guys from the train for a fairwell Peking Duck. After yet another shower, it was soooo hot and humid we were ready for our walk to meet the guys, again at the square. We eventually found everyone and we headed off to find a recommended duck restaurant in the lonelyplanet guide book only to find, suprise suprise, the road it was on was being renovated! We headed further in vain to find another resaurant but it just wasn't hapening. People were getting hungry so we decided to stop at the next resaurant we came to which was a realy posh one. We all went in and were put in a private room which realy didn't feel comfortable and wasn't realy what we were looking for and very expensive so 5 of us gave our apologies and decided to leave, leaving the others there as they were tired and hungry and couldn't wait any longer. We headed off with Adrians guide book in hand to find another recommended duck resaurant which we believed to be just around the corner. After searching for about 20 mins asking people the way which was impossible as no one spoke english, we turned a corner and there it was..........Peking Duck!!!!! It was amazing, super tasty, just what we wanted and well worth the walk. After a few drinks in a litle bar around the corner from our hostel it was time to say godbye to Jess, Jules & Adrian and head back to our hostel for a good nights sleep.The next morning we met up with Ant & Lisa (a couple from the train who decided they were going to stalk us through China!) to sort out our onward tickets to Xi'an. We had heard to get a soft sleeper train you need to book 3 days in advance so we thought we were booking in plenty of time until we were told there was only hard seats left. We would be traveling overnight and sleeping on a seat didn't sound too appealing but we needed to get out of Beijing in 4 days so it was our only option. The train is only 12 hrs so it couldn't be that bad...could it? Tickets booked we could get on with enjoying our time n Beijing so we left Ant and Lisa to catch up on their washing and headed off to the silk street market. Again it looked close on the map but it wasn't and after an hours walk we were there. Silk street market is 5 floors of anything you want, most of it fake! so we thought is was the perfect oportunity for a few bargains. We stoped at one of the first stalls and Lisa saw a top she liked and tried it on, well it was more put on by the stall holder and it looked realy nice. We asked the price and she showed me on the calculator, about 70 pounds! I said no way and she said "ok how much you wanna pay", i said about 2 pounds and she said "you crazy" but then offered me special price because i was english, it was still ridiculous so we said we would look round. This was a bad idea as she got a bit aggressive and started grabing Lisa saying "how much u wanna pay" it all got a bit heated and as we managed to get away she came running after us with a new price, it was about 5 pounds. We were tempted but she had been sooooo agressive we decided to leave it, especially as the place was massive. Whilst walking through the market all you could here was "hello lady wanna buy bag/watch/t-shirt" all trying to grab your hands. Once you got used to it, it wasn't too bad and was fun at times. We decided clothes was a bad idea as you needed to try them on so we decided to buy a day bag. There was plently we liked but decided on a Diesel bag as it was on quite a few stores and could play each one off against each ther to get the best price. We decided on price we were willing to pay and got to work. Their prices started at about 20 pounds, i wanted to pay no more than 3. After bargaining at a few stalls the cheapest seemed to be 3.50 but i wasn't giving on my 3 pound limit, i even got called stingey by one stall holder! It just wasn't hapening and we were tired and decided to leave....empty handed. As we walked to the metro (we thought we would cheat and get the train back) we passed a few stalls in the subway and one of them had the bag we wanted, they also wouldn't play ball until we walked away, she called us back and the deal was done. We were the proud owners of a new/fake Diesel bag for the sum of 3 pounds. Now happy and tired we headed back to our hostel for some food and well deserved sleep ready for our next day.......The Forbidden City.
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