China

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Today is our last day in China! We are off to Malaysia tomorrow for some beach action! 😊

After Chengdu, we went to Xi'an. It was ridiculously hot there! Xi'an is one of the only Chinese cities left with the old city walls, they are pretty impressive. There is also a bell tower and drum tower, we didn't go in them because we had to pay. There is a Muslim quarter there as well, surrounding the old mosque, we had a wander round there, it had a huge market and loads of weird looking food!
And, obviously, in Xi'an there are the terracotta warriors! We went to see them, there are loads and they are still excavating. There is probably about 6000 buried there.

Then, we got the train to Beijing and have been here for a week. Oh my god, there is so much to do here!! I really like it here, it's much cleaner and people stare less than anywhere else. They still take sneaky photos though, I think they think I'm someone famous because lots of Chinese people come up and take pics of me or ask if they can have a picture taken with me. It's quite funny, but a bit odd. Anyway, we had heard that the air in Beijing is horrible and that breathing the air here is like smoking 70 cigarettes a day! But it's not that bad at all.

We went to the Forbidden city, it was huge! A proper maze. I rented an automatic guide which was good, loads of random information. We went to Tienanmen Square, got my picture taken with Mao. We went to some temples. We did some shopping, that was loads of fun! We found a mad shopping centre, I bought a dress (bargained down from 40 to 10 quid) a cardigan (bargained from 50 to 10) then we got the best bargain ever! We looked at some shoes, Matt liked 2 pairs and she told him 100 quid for both pairs, so we bargained hard, I saw a pair I liked too, so we got her down to 35 pounds for all three pairs!! Result! She wasn't happy, she shouted at us, hehehe!!

Yesterday we went to Mutianyu to climb the Great Wall, it was amazing. The wall is ace, very grand. And the views from the top are amazing! It was quite hot, the walk was hard but worth it. Then we tobogganed back down, it was loads of fun, but we kept getting stuck behind some Chinese chickens who kept braking and going slow. Poofs.

Today, we have been to the Summer Palace, it's gorgeous. I think I would have quite liked to have been an empress.

Oh yeah, we also went for Peking duck. Yumyumyum. Me and Matt ate a whole duck between us.

Going for tea now. Bye!

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