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Published: September 6th 2014
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So today was a busy day for us all. The original itinerary was to visit the fake goods market and then go see the Olympic park. However Bhavisha, Kirsty and I decided to skip the Olympic park in favour of the summer palace.
So we all piled on the tube with our guide Lunar to the fake goods and pearl market. Here you can buy clothes, electronics, perfume, cosmetic, bags etc which are all branded copies like apple, Prada and Marc Jacobs. It wasn't very busy and the market is over 3 floors. There were also places selling furs, not sure if they were real or fake as I didn't check them out. On the top floor was the pearl and jewellery markets and also the place to buy tourist items.
We were allotted 3 hours here which impersonally think was a bit excessive, but for anyone who really wanted to shop it was ample I guess. The art of haggling was also necessary, we start low they start high and eventually we agree a price. I bought some tourist items and some new pants lol.
We left around 12 noon and
headed to subway to get some food before getting on the subway to go to the peoples palace. We walked in and found the boys, great minds think alike lol.
After lunch we caught the subway to the summer palace which took us about 45 minutes for the princely sum of 20p which is amazing! We had a ten minute walk from the tube to the palace entrance and opted for a ticket which included admission to some of the places inside. On reflection we should have also got a map.
On trip advisor it says you need about 3 hours to visit, I totally disagree and would say you could spend half to a whole day there as the place is massive! The buildings, temples, gates, and lake (which is massive) etc are set in park like grounds. There is little signage around so you have to guess where you are, hence us really needing a map. Kirsty did take a photo of someone's map to help us but it was quite small on her phone.
So we did the best we could and visited many of the places our
ticket would allow. We got there around 2pm and left around 5pm and still hadn't seen everything. The palace was used by various emperors and included living accommodation, gates, temples, a gallery, halls and administration buildings. There is a long covered walk way which has around 1400 paintings on it and runs along one side of the shore. We also caught the end of a performance by various musicians and dancers.
We caught the subway back which was a little quicker and with less changes and walked back to the hostel which took about 10 minutes. In the evening we had a duck dinner planned and then we were talking about going out to pub street and a gay club for a boogie lol.
I did ask the boys how was the Olympic park and it ranged from yeah it was ok to it was boring and you didn't miss much.
Before showering and changing I had to track down my laundry as they had had it since Saturday. It wasn't dry due to rain we had been having, but to my recollection it had only rained in the evenings so
I wasn't prepared to accept this as an excuse. Other people in our group had got their laundry back ok so why no me. I was totally peed off so went in search of Lunar who had to go and find it for me. Apparently they had a new housekeeper which seemed tombs the root cause, not my issue really she should get her act together and the hostel should make sure she is trained up properly and is doing her job. Lunar took me to the laundry area and I identified my stuff and took it back and dried it the dorm room. Franklin and John had items missing or had each others stuff and had to sort all that out!
At 7.30pm we regrouped and headed over the road to the restaurant for a duck supper. We could eat as much duck as we liked including the pancakes and sauce and bits you put in the pancake, a broth made of the left over bits of the bird and roast and boiled duck. We also ordered some other dishes to accompany the duck.
By the time we had finished eating it was
9.30pm and the tubes stopped running at 11pm and the girls still needed to get ready so we agreed to meet at 10pm. However I was feeling tired and I didn't relish the prospect of being out drinking in Beijing with Stuart and having to deal with his drunken state so I decided not to go. I sat in the bar with them until about 11.30pm and then headed to bed. Kirsty said the club was open until 5am so they didn't want to get there too early lol.
Xxx
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