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Published: April 18th 2015
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Well we are two days in and all seems to be going well, apart from Claire having a cold and her feet are ruined after today, where to start....
Day 1
Day one totalled well over 30 hours of being awake, we had two pain in the ass people sat infront of us from Helsinki to Beijing meaning we couldn't get any sleep.
We landed at Beijing, the first job was to get to our hotel, I can say this was quite successful, one train and two changes on the metro and we stepped out into our first street in Beijing, no sooner had we done that and a nice lady who was walking our way guided us to our hotel.
We checked in, had a quick shower and headed straight out, first stop Beijing Zoo.
Beijing zoo was intresting, its quite big with pleanty to see.
It was quite odd walking around, quite a few people were having a good look at us but that was probably because we were one of the few westerners there.
After that we we're back on the metro to the Olympic park.
First stop was to get some food,
by this time we were quite hungry so we headed into the shopping mall and the food hall.
Once we got there we soon realised nobody spoke any english and we didn't have a clue what we were doing.
Luckily a lady at one of the counters helped us, we pointed at some food, she showed us where to pay and took us back to grab it and sit down, it turned out the food was lovely.
Once finished whe headed into the Olympic Park and to the birds nest.
It was a bit strange, every where you went you could still see the signs and painting for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, it was as if it had just been left to stand after the Olympics and they were just tarting it up for the world championship this summer, I must admit at this point I did nod off for a moment whilst we sat down, from here we headed over to the water cube where the swimming and diving was carried out.
We decided that we would stay until the sun went down to see everything light up, that was well worth it, I would say that whilst waiting
we had a couple of intresting moments, first two random guys asked if they could have a photo with me and then a little toddler took a shine to Claire but wasn't brave enough to sit with her to have a photo taken by his family.
From there we headed back to the hotel, had a beer and crashed.
Day 2
Up at 7 out the door at 8 and in The Forbidden City for abour 9ish.
Oh my god it was busy, not having a clue about getting a ticket we asked a fellow English man where to get one, to which he told us it was the large queue, luckly as we walked off he grabbed us, told us they had a guide who was in the queue for guides and could get us a ticket, what a bonus we even got to jump the queue to get into the main part of the Forbidden City, what a place to see with the different gates and Palaces.
It proved to be a bit of a scrum seeing inside the palaces as we had now learned the Chinese don't do queuing and taking turns like us
brits do.
Whilst in there we also noticed, and at times quite blatantly, we were having our photo taken, this was quite funny, at one point Claire turned round so they could get a better picture and was told to turn back, lol.
Next was Jing Shan Park, what can I say, lots of steps to the top of a large hill with a temple on top, within the temple stood a Buddha, what an amazing view over Beijing, well what you could see through the haze.
From there we went to Tienanmen square and then on to the Temple of Heaven.
Again this was an amazing place within the walls with more temples to look at.
After spending several hours in the Temple of Heaven we headed off to the main shopping area and the night market where we tried some different food from the market stools.
The food myself and Claire tried include duck pancake roll with some bloody hot chillies, chowmein role, dumplings and I even tried scorpions, all be it they were quite small, snake and some grub things that to be honest I only managed to eat one off as the
texture was gross.
From there we had a look through some of the old night market and headed back to the hotel where Claire has now crashed and I am writing this blog before having a shower and heading to bed.
Tomorrow is The Great Wall, can't wait.....
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Famous again I see you guys always seem to attract people to you ..... sounds amazing xxxxxx