Beijing - China

The first thing we did upon arriving (and after a good night's sleep on a rock hard bed) was go to the local supermarket which was full of fresh meat, fish and fruit. Nothing was in English which was a great/interesting experience. Then we finally got a taxi to our new accommodation which is only a couple of kms away from Tiananmen Square and much more central. Once here we went for a walk and got our bearings and had a nice dinner at a restaurant a few doors down. Appropriate to have Peking Duck Pancakes in Peking.

18th August
It was a slow start to the day but much needed rest. We walked to a local bakery and bought the most amazing food for breakfast! It is very tricky here as all social media outlets are banned as well as Gmail – it is making life quite tough but we are managing. We did a bunch of hand washing in the bath and then caught the underground to the city wall. It was really well preserved with a beautiful walkway around it. We saw zero Westerners. Then we caught the subway again to the Temple of Heaven where there were more Westerners but also hundreds of Chinese tourists. The grounds were huge and we didn’t buy the ticket to get into the temple so walked around the grounds. We had bought some fresh fruit so had that for lunch. After a while we made our way back to the hotel where we played some Settlers of Catan and phoned Lorna/Mom. We went to the same place as last night for dinner and had the most amazing meal.

The next few days were lazy ones – some of us had upset guts and just general tiredness setting in. We caught the subway to the Silk Market and Wafujing Street which had a street market section. They had live scorpions on a stick which they then cooked in front of you. Needless to say we passed on those. This was noisy and smelly with so many tourists, but such an amazing experience.
We then made our way back to the first hotel where we met the rest of the tour group for the first time. There was a family and their partners – Rob, Fiona, Kylie, Ari, Sam, Karl, Laura and Crocodile Dundee Mark, Lucy, Nicola and friends Maria, Sarah and Natalie. Our guide Jimbo seemed very serious but loosened up over the week and was a really genuine guy.

We got up bright and early and missioned it to Tiananmen Square which was an experience in itself. A bus full of what felt like a hundred people flew through the streets to get to the square. Just when you felt like no one else could get it, more people did. There was a woman who worked for the bus company who had her own little area and would take tickets - and would yell at the top of her voice in mandarin at the

passengers. It was all overwhelming but also hilarious at the same time. Once we arrived at the square we instantly became celebrities - especially the half Icelandic, half Norwegian guy on our tour. We finally made our way into the square with the hundreds of other people, in the stinking hot heat where there was no shelter from the sun. The actual buildings were very interesting and the gardens were lovely. But after being in the heat for so long, on our feet and being surrounded by so many people, we were happy to get out. While we were waiting for instructions of where to go next, I got asked by a teenage Chinese boy if he could take my photo! He said "excuse me ma'am, but I think you are beautiful, can I have a photo with you?". I was so impressed that he actually asked and that he spoke English that I said yes. After Tiananmen Square we walked as a group to another area of the city and saw the Bell and Drum Towers. We ran through town to get there but missed the last entrance by a matter of minutes. Kyle and I made our way back to our accommodation by bus which took us about 2 hours! We were exhausted by then so had snacks for dinner and packed our bags for the next day's adventure.
- Danielle