Saturday 26 September Rock hard bed wasn't so great two nights in a row. There are sounds of firecrackers going off at intervals. I wonder if it's the beginning of the public holiday season. Eventually we get up and have something to eat, pack our things and leave for the day. I just hope we can find the manger to let us back in later! We walk toward the little wild goose pagoda, on the way we see road rage. A man raging at a taxi driver and this holding up the...

Friday 25 September We get up early. I slept well on the very hard bed. It's difficult to wake. We take the subway to the north station. That's easy. Trying to get tickets to the mountain, that's hard. The machines English button is disconnected and the ticket lady speaks virtually no English. The translation app is only helpful to a point as with no wifi/data there is no translation of exactly what we want, and only set phrases with a few changeable options. W...

Thursday 24 September I'm awake early because the older couple get up and talking quite loudly with the door open and the light shining in. It's not even 6am yet! Oh well. When we arrive at 8:15 we make our way out of the station and to the bus we need to catch. A few ppl approach us about taxis. We get off at stop 9. It's complicated to find and we walk up and down the street. Eventually someone helps is and we enter an apartment building and the man helps us c...

Wednesday 23 September We don't have to check out until 12 so we have a relaxing morning. It's nice not to to rush off somewhere. We decide to do a rickshaw tour of some protected hutong's. We walk some of the way and catch the subway. On the way we pass a hair accessory store and I find some curly ties I've been looking for. So cheap too. There are so many rickshaws but they all seem to be the same company. They want ¥100 each for a 40 min ride. We get his ...