Hello! Last night I didn't sleep too well. I woke up around 4am and couldn't sleep until about 6, then I can only describe that from 8 onwards there seemed to be a building site at work outside our window. It was quite intermittent the noise, with banging, drills and a man shouting at other people. It made for some strange dreams! Then I slept through our alarm until midday.
We made our way to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City today. I thought it was just a big square with a palace at one end but there's a reason it's called a city! It's about as big as Oldham! Full of different temples, towers, gardens and surrounded by a massive moat. It was spectacular but we did an awful lot of walking.
The metro - it's mental. It's very efficient and we had no problems with finding which to get on and buying tickets (easier than London's underground!) but it is mental. They have people on the stations controlling the people getting in and out but at one stop, the woman actually pushed me in to make me fit it was that full! I didn't really appreciate it but Ben was v amused! The people really do like to push as well.
I'm getting a little bit sick of being stared at already. I feel like an alien. Some girl even asked to have her photo taken with us - what's the caption going to say?!
We ventured out tonight to eat. After eyeing up many places we chose somewhere that we saw a few Westerners coming out of. We were given a menu which had no English on it but it had pictures of food. The waitress just stood there expecting us to order straightaway, it was too much pressure! It's also pretty hard to tell what something is when it's pictured in a sauce! I chose something not in a sauce & which could only be chicken or duck. It ended up being dried duck that came with pancakes & bits. It was quite nice. Ben chose something that looked like crispy beef, but I didn't think it was that. His arrived first and it did not look like beef! It wasn't crispy either and looked soft. I told him to start eating and not wait for me but he was really scared to try it!!! It was a good few minutes before he had a taste. He thought it was pork. I tried some once I knew it was safe-it was nice but suspiciously soft. It was quite thin & in strips so at least I thought it couldn't be chicken feet as those must be tough, right?! I tried to google it when we got back and the first thing that came up was dog meat, so I've given up on knowing! We ordered dumplings as well after last night but they had prawns in them so I didn't eat them. We had to point at someones beer on the next table to order it and we didn't get any rice as there were no pictures!! To say that we got a few dishes it still cost less than £10 which is impressive. Another Westerner came in later (probably as he'd seen us) and we saw him asking for a knife and fork so at least we weren't that bad!
Tomorrow we're planning to go to Beijing Zoo then up to the Summer Palace. I'm giving up hope of watching United v Chelsea.
Nearly time for bed so I can get some sleep before the workmen are back! They were noisy until just before 8pm - that's 12 hours of all that noise!!!