Biscuits with Chairman Mao

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Hi guys hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. Christmas in China was good but a little bit strange although first will fill you in on what else I have been up to. The week before Christmas I got the bus up to Beijing to meet up with the old Swede, was so good to see a familiar face over the holidays and he came armed with almost a rucksack full of crunchies....heaven as chocolate hear tastes like soap! Jag sakner dig!
I spent the first day in Beijing shopping (mainly getting Eunice a few designer hand bags) and almost getting myself beaten up by some South African drug dealers! These 3 massive guys came up to me in the street and started mumbling something but due to my grandfatherly like hearing when they asked do you want some gear I did not quite hear them and thought they were just wanting some of my fine chat so preceded to ramble on about the weather and what I was doing in China one of them then shouted do you want any shit or not and then told me to fuck off!! All very confusing and I being all sweet and innocent just thought they were being friendly!
Beijing was amazing but sweet lord its cold Maxine you are going to die -all Maxers keeps saying is that she cant wait to get a tan have not yet informed her that its -14 here and that the first thing we will have to do when she arrives is go out and buy a pair of trusty long johns!
The next day we went to see Mao in his mausoleum which was a bit creepy he just looked like a big fat doll but while queuing up to see the great Chairman this old Chinese granny shoved a big handful of stale biscuits in my hand and then tried to ram some in my mouth! Also went to the Forbidden City which was incredible. It’s so much bigger than I expected and so beautiful, even although you’re in the centre of Beijing inside the Forbidden City walls it’s so peaceful. Got totally lost again that afternoon all the Hutongs are like a maze and I who normally take pride in my map reading skills was hopeless I had us all walking to some tube station that won’t be built until November 2007.
The next day we went to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. After much confusion about which bus to take we ended up on some heap of a mini bus with about 67 Chinese people who were clearly on some psychiatric hospitals day out! (Note the guy whose head is quite clearly off centre!) The first stop was some fake looking ancient Chinese town where foreigners were not allowed to go! Then we were taken to a jade factory where they attempted to get us to buy over priced and again fake looking, jade. After another stop at a Beijing duck factory we finally reached the Great Wall. And it was more than worth all the tacky tourist stuff we had to endure before. It was incredible and so so massive I had to get the guy with the off centre head to help me heave myself up the huge steps. It stretches for miles creeping off over the undulating hills into the distance. Again my photos do it no justice - they are on the next blog entry not really sure why but anyway..we only got to spend an hour at the wall which is no way long enough so I am looking forward to going back with Max (I am thinking of doing the trip where you hike between two sections and camp out on the wall, not sure how much she will be loving that idea though). After we got back to Beijing we went to Donghuamen night market where they sell roasted grasshoppers, cockroaches and crickets on a stick...wasn't tempted so had a McDonalds instead. And the next day we were off to Chongqing.

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