Onwards!

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Well figuratively at least. After I last left you, we still had a bit of time to spend in Beijing. After my last entry we attempted to locate some dinner in the Hutong near our hotel. We decided on a restaurant that had a helpful picture menu with English translations. We were both aghast when we opened it, as it was filled with all sorts of animals and their parts which we do normally not encounter. A plate of duck heads! Gizzards! Luckily amongst all that interesting food we found some pork dishes, which were actually quite tasty.

The next day we had some time to fill before we met up with our tour, so visited the also nearby Lama Temple, which was in typical Beijing high tourist season very very unquiet. But we were lucky enough to see some monks chanting amongst all the chaos. We changed hotels, then decided to get some lunch at the sort of close (in Beijing measurement) snack street. After viewing the scorpions still wiggling on their sticks, and all other manner of bugs waiting to be eaten, we decided on noodles and pancakes. We did get to watch some drunk americans eat some scorpions though, which is almost as good as experiencing it ourselves.

After nearly 4 days on our feet, we were excited to see our new hotel was next to a foot massage establishment. Although not 100% sure whether this was a massage establishment or a "massage" establishment, our feet were so sore we thought we would take a chance. It seemed to be a normal massage place, so we paid for 80 minutes of their finest relaxation. And it was pretty relaxing, finishing with a wrap all over our legs and feet that seemed to have some aromatic oils in it, intensified by the plastic wrap over the top. Once it was all over, we walked back to our hotel realising that our legs and feet felt like they were on fire. Hooray for allergic reactions to crazy chinese treatments! Luckily I discovered I had packed some cream that seemed to take the edge off, and we were able to meet our companions for the next couple of days without appearing disfigured.

We are travelling with a group of 11 including the guide, which apart from two Swiss and two Brits are all Australian, including two other public servants from Canberra. LOL.

By now it is Tuesday (the time is flying!), which meant back out to the Great Wall. Luckily it was a different section to my last visit, which also meant a less intense experience. We opted for a cable car to the top, then a fairly strenuous walk between 15 or so towers. It was very restored, but still pretty impressive, with lovely weather to boot. The best part came at the end when we were able to get a toboggan slide all the way to the bottom, win!

That afternoon Holly and I agreed to go see a "kung fu" show, which was fairly interesting but also kind of strange. They did a lot of breaking of things on their head, with sommersaults using their heads, all while doing some choreographed tough guy mock fights. The real highlight of this outing was getting hand pulled noodles nearby. Not only did I provide entertainment for all the other local chinese eating their dinner as I tried to eat my noodle soup, it was also only $2 each including beer.

Bright and early Wednesday we got on the train, which departed at 8:05 on the dot, ready for our 30 trip to Mongolia. It was really great travelling in the day, watching as the landscape changed from mountains to flat plains, to the start of the Gobi. We arrived at the border at 8:30pm, ready for immigration and bogie changes. After a lot of messing around, we finally left the Mongolian border at 2am. The Chinese immigration officials had an official photographer documenting the process, so look out for me in some promotional material coming your way soon.

Next up, Mongolia!

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