First seven days

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One week in and we are finally beginning to adjust to the Chinese way of life. Our arrival in Beijing could have perhaps been smoother as the second interaction with a chinese man we had was the police as we were about to get in a black cab. This didn't particularly bother us as we didn't really know what was going on but we were directed to a licensed cab and arrivd swiftly in an extremely nice area of Beijng. As we hadn't technically left the airport premises we consider ourselves not to have been in China at the time so it doesn't count; apologies parents for not informing you of these details in previoius emails but we didn't want to worry you.
Upon arriving in Beijin it was absolutely non-stop! On our first day we went to the Temple of Heaven and tried Beijing duck, shamefully we do hold the UK takeaways duck in higher esteem. The Temple of Heaven is pretty much a blur as we got about an hours sleep on the plane we walked round it feeling like zombies. We enjoyed The Summer Palace the following day was much more, situated around a huge lake with pathways lined by cherry blossoms it was stunning. Other attractions in Bejing we saw were the Forbidden City, which is massive, a few parks and the Hutongs (old alleyways) in the lake district. The highlight for both of us so far has understandably been the Great Wall. We spent four hours walking along, admiring the phenomenol views and soaking p the rays. It was a lovely clear day and we could see for miles! The hike up there was quite tough, a lot of steps, but is well worth the effort.
Our second destination in China and where we are currently is Shaghai. Even though there are fewer attractions to see here everybody in our tour group prefers the city. Beijing we liked but the streets are extremely wide and the place is slightly lacking in any real atmosphere. Shanghai is buzzing with fewer Chinese tourists and a lot more western faces around; in Beijing we barely saw any western people at all, even at the main sites. We did suffer a rather horrendus overnight train to get here, Abbie and I are convinced we had the most vile man on the train in our dorm. Snoring all night and spitting all moring 13 hours in his company was almost too much to bear! He climbed all over our beds and kept dumping his luggage on our feet. We are boarding another trainthis afternoon, 17 hours this time and are praying we don't get anybody as bad.
On the whole the chinese people are very nice, unfortunately there is a massive language barrier eveywhere, without our guide Ming I don't think we would cope! They are quite an inconsiderate culture you have to get your elbows out on the subway to have any hope of getting on or off. They spit very loudly, really hacking it up from the back of the throat, shooting it out anywhere: on the street, in shops occassionally on our feet. Gross.
Aside from these few cultural shocks we love it here! The clubs in Shanghai are amazing, it is like being 15 again with tunes such as 'Put your handsup for Detroit' and the chinese have some entertaining dancing moves.
Xi'an is the next stop where we will go to see the Terracotta Warriors.
I apologise for the typing, the keyboards out here are a little ropey. Now we are going to loadup on food for our incredibly long train journey,

Love,

Abs and Lizzie

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Comments

[Lindsey]

Great to hear from you
Hi girls, glad to hear you're enjoying your adventure. Think you will be very worldly wise by the time you reach us Lizzie. Fairly quiet here although helicopters busy last night. Boys now doing longer days and Al working on Saturday mornings as exam boards not prepared to stretch any deadlines. Take care and look forward to hearing your next bit of news! xx

[Lucy Elliott]

Amazing :)
Thiss all sounds amazing!! keep safe and miss you lots :) xxxxxxxxx