Beijing part une

Hong Kong to Beijing was a short uneventful flight that had a nice little surprise at the end. We picked up the surprise and headed into Beijing centre by train to go and meet the wisest of the Griffin clan, Declan's brother Noel. Noel had been living in China for a few years working for an IT firm, he and Declan hadn't seen each other for nearly two years so a nice little drink was in order.

Having found our way into Beijing on the relatively straightforward airport train we now found ourselves in the labyrinth of the city's underground network. Leaving Mel with the bags, Declan went on the hunt for his brother. He roamed about the bustling train station ascending at least 3 flights of stairs passing countless security guards and millions of people. When he eventually found the way out he started his descent back to find Mel when out of nowhere he heard some English. "Yo Bruv" were the very fitting words to get someone's attention in the middle of China. After hugging it out Dec and Noel ventured down to find Mel and retrieve the bags.

Bags and Mel found there was one more thing to show Noel before we left the station. "Noel we've got a little surprise for you!" grinned Declan. "Show it me outside before this station gets too busy" came his response. "Hhhmmm can't quite do that"

All of a sudden Roisin walks out from her hiding place and says hi. Noel was literally taken aback. Months of planning had led to this little surprise and he just didn't know what to do. It would take most of the night for him to get over the levels of deception undertaken by everyone in the family to not let the cat out the bag. Not only was he now in China with his little Bro and girlfriend, he was there with his little sister too!

That night after getting settled into a lovely little hostel just round the corner from Noels, we headed out to his local. Café de la Poste was a lovely little French restaurant/bar that Noel obviously frequented quite a lot as he knew everyone in there. We met up with his girlfriend and a few of their friends and drank the night away. Coffee shots at 3am anyone?!

God only knows how Noel got up and went to work the following morning but he did. Mel, Rosh and Dec had a slower start to the day but still had a fun filled day of tourist sites to see.

Having sussed out the city's underground network (thank God its colour coded) we found our way to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It is located in the center of Beijing and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of the emperor of China and their posse, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings. The palace complex exemplifies tradition and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

The whole complex is ringed by a 52m-wide moat which was frozen while we were there because it was so cold. The Forbidden City, is China's largest and best-preserved collection of ancient buildings, and the largest palace complex in the world. It is called the Forbidden City because it was off limits to normal people for 500 years.

Today, the Forbidden City is uninspiringly known as the Palace Museum, although most Chinese people simply call it gùgōng (故宫; former palace).Tourists enter through the Meridian Gate, a massive U-shaped portal at the south end of the complex, which in former times was reserved for the use of the emperor. Through the Meridian Gate, we entered an enormous courtyard, and crossed the Golden Stream - shaped to resemble a Tartar bow and spanned by five marble bridges - on our way to the magnificent Gate of Supreme Harmony (太和门; Tàihé Mén). This courtyard could hold a ridiculous audience of 100,000 people.

Raised on a three-tier marble terrace with balustrades are the Three Great Halls, these are the glorious heart of the Forbidden City. Inside the first hall, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, is a richly decorated Dragon Throne (龙椅; Lóngyǐ), from which the emperor would preside over trembling officials. The other two halls were equally as grand and involved climbing and descending hundreds of stairs!! We continued walking through the expansive complex stopping for mini breaks and drinks along the way. The Clock Exhibition Hall is apparently one of the unmissable highlights of the Forbidden City. We decided to give it a miss even though Rosh really wanted to see it!!

At the northern end of the Forbidden City is the Imperial Garden (御花园; Yù Huāyuán), a classical Chinese garden of fine landscaping, including rockeries, walkways, pavilions and ancient cypresses. It was here when we discovered we would need to walk all the way back through the forbidden city to get back out as the looming 30ft walls didn't seem to have any gates! It was also here where a random man speaking Pidgin English managed to take the piss out of the Griffin nose while trying to sell us a Christmas bauble with a panda painted on it!

From the Forbidden City we headed off towards the Mao-soleum. Luckily we made it in one piece after avoiding a massive row in the queue for the subway whereby some guy totally ignored the 'official' and nearly took a beat down.Back to the Mao-soleum which is a mausoleum but with Chairman Mao's body in it. Chairman Mao was the top dude during all the Chinese revolution stuff in the 70s and everyone in China adores him. The Mao-soleum was unfortunately closed and is only ever open on a Tuesday for like 2 hours so the olg fella don't get to hot and melt!!. We since found out that Mao body isn't even in there, it's a fake apparently, the real body decayed from being on display for so long.

That night Noel took us off to another trendy bar of which he knew the owner and we had some lovely yunnan food(which is a region of China that is famous for its food) the menu had a lovely item on it called 'egg grief' what it was we will never know. We then headed for a bar called Revolution. Revolution was packed to the rafters with westerners and featured a host of anti- government propaganda and paraphernalia. It's surprising how normal and western Beijing actually is; a picture seems to have been painted about China that is just totally different from what we were experiencing.

Day 2 we journeyed off to the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven Park is located in the Chongwen District, Beijing. Originally, this was the place where emperors of the Ming (1368 - 1644) and Qing dynastys (1644 - 1911) held the Heaven Worship Ceremony. It is China's largest and most representative existing masterpiece among China's ancient sacrificial buildings. First built in 1420 it was enlarged and rebuilt during the reigns of the Ming emperor Jiajing and the Qing emperor Qianlong. In 1988, the Temple of Heaven was opened to the public as a park, showing ancient philosophy, history and religion. Its grand architectural style and profound cultural connotation give an insight into the practices of the ancient Eastern civilization.Covering an area of 2,700,000 square meters, the Temple of Heaven is larger than the forbidden city, so we were in for another day of walking!

The 267-hectare Temple of Heaven Park is encompassed by a long wall with a gate at each end, once again only one gate was open so we had to walk back through the park after we had saw the temple. Although not strictly speaking a temple - the Chinese name means 'Altar of Heaven' it originally served as a vast stage for solemn rites performed by the Son of Heaven (a title bestowed on the emperor of the time), who prayed here for good harvests and sought divine clearance and atonement.

Seen from above, the temple halls are round and the bases square, in accordance with the notion 'Tiānyuán Dìfāng' 'which means that Heaven is round and the Earth is square'.

The highlight of the park, and an icon of Beijing in its own right, is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, an astonishing structure with a triple-eaved purplish-blue umbrella roof mounted on a three-tiered marble terrace. The wooden pillars support the ceiling without nails or cement - for a building 38m high and 30m in diameter, that's quite an accomplishment. Embedded in the ceiling is a carved dragon, a symbol of the emperor. Built in 1420, the hall was reduced to ash after being zapped by a lightning bolt during the reign of Guangxu in 1889; a faithful reproduction based on Ming architectural methods was erected the following year.

Wrapped around the Imperial Vault of Heaven is Echo Wall . Apparently a whisper can travel clearly from one end to the other - unless a cacophonous tour group makes such a raucous noise that you can't hear yourself think!

It was at this point that we decided to get ourselves a much needed drink. The infamous Beijing smog was thick today and we were dehydrated from all the walking. Having selected a few drinks from the fridge a man said the total to Declan 20p or something and then held out his hand. Declan not being born yesterday looked hard into the man's eyes and realised that he didn't work in the drinks booth at all, just a plucky local trying his luck against a daft westerner. After walking all the way back through the Temple of Heaven we headed into a massive mall to warm ourselves up and got a lovely beverage from a shop that clearly wasn't Starbucks, starbooks?!That night Noel took us out again to his friend Gordon's restaurant before we headed off for more drinks at a bar that did all you can drink for a fiver!!! We didn't stay long as the next day we were going to Gun club.

Day three saw us head some 30 miles out of the city to a government run shooting range. We unfortunately got off the bus one stop to early and had to walk a good few miles to find the place. Built for the Olympics the shooting range was a massive building with a hall of guns. It kind of looked like the gun museum from Sly Stallone's and Wesley Snipes hit action film Demolition Man. Anyway I digress, we were at Gun club to celebrate Noels birthday and as it's somewhere he always wanted to go, that's where we went.

Gun club allowed us the chance to fire a range of different guns at some targets all in relative safety. Noel chose a hand gun and a rifle for us to have a go at firing. First up was the handgun. The target was about 20 foot away on the end of a special contraption. Noel went first and managed some pretty nifty shooting, mainly in the head of the target, all ten hit the target and he was fairly pleased. Dec went next and was so good at shooting the target he managed to shoot through the same hole twice!!! (That's just what he said because one missed) Rosh was up next and managed to do some damage to the target, she'd be useful in a zombie apocalypse but with Noels shooting skills he'd be the Griffin of choice. Noel then paid extra for some extra shooting with a big rifle. The rifle target was a lot further away and required Noel to sit while he shot. After taking the wind into consideration he managed to hit the center spot 5 times, he scored 90 out of a 100!! The guy is a crack shot!! With Gun club finished we headed off to get the train north to the Great Wall!(Chernobyl train station)

'Great Wall fresh' is ran by Mr. Chen who rents out a room on his farmland to people who want to see the real great wall. By the real great wall we mean a section of the wall not packed with tourists. The touristy part of the wall is also the newest section that was built, every few months the government closes the section and rebuilds it so millions of tourist can keep flocking to it. The section of the wall we were visiting doesn't have any tourists, its 650 years old, no one looks after it and it's the true Great Wall, not some 'fabricated for tourists' area. Mr. Chen was an absolute hero; he picked us up from the train station and introduced us to his family. That evening he made us a lovely traditional dinner and supplied us with as much drink as we wanted.

The following morning came our trip up the Great Wall. From outside Mr. Chen's farm we could see the towering hill with the mighty wall sat atop of it. Mr. Chen drove us a few kilometers away from his house so we could hike back to it along the wall. With Mr Chen back in the car on his way home and no one around for miles the only way was up. The day was a brisk winter morning and the hill was a steep one. We powered up it to the wall, the girls were making sure we didn't go to fast by dawdling at the back, Rosh tried to keep up with the Griffin boys but to no avail, and Noels 10km daily walks to and from work meant he was as fit asa afiddle so he flew up the hill. At the top of the hill we came across the 20 foot wall, luckily the section we were in front of was partly destroyed so we could scamper up on to the top of it.

To say it was windy up top would be being modest, it was blowing a gale!! The wind was bitter but luckily as you may know the wall is made up of a series of wall and tower sections. Every 300 meters or so we came to a tower that provided us some respite from the harsh wind. Upon looking back along the wall we spotted 1 solitary old man following our trail. For some strange reason even though we were all walking at a good pace he managed to catch up with us simply by walking, much like the terminator always managed to catch Sarah Conner in the original terminator film! This worried us, a strange old Chinese man wandering about on the top of a wall definitely sounds like how a crazy kung fu fight would begin. Mel wasn't worried because she has channeled her inner 'fu' through her underground fight club career, but the Griffins remained weary to the man's true power; we are after all in the land of the dragon! As it turned out he just wanted a cigarette and then he disappeared as quickly as he appeared.

Our hike along the wall was brilliant, it's a marvelous feat of human engineering. It stretched out for miles in front and behind us as far as the eye could see, up and over the hills. God only knows how they managed to even build the section we were on, it was freezing cold and we were high above the local villages and 20 miles away from the nearest town. Getting the blocks up there would have been enough but building the wall up without getting blown away was another. Rosh can be a direct source of the wind factor as she nearly got blown away not once but on every stretch of wall.

Before coming down from the wall we left our own mark up there in the form of the SJG building sign. We carved the symbol into a lovely section of a newly built section of the wall made by the Griffin trio!

It took most of the evening to return home from Great Wall Fresh as the Chinese love going in the opposite direction to get back to the Capital. In the evening we ate once more like Kings at an all you can eat, which was much needed after our long hike.

The following day Noel took us on a tour of the Hutong we were staying in. We climbed a crazy bell tower and watched some very interesting young men bang out a tune on some ancient bells. Apparently it has been done every day for like a million years!! We then went and scouted out some shops on some crazy road that has absolutely everything you could possibly want to buy, including a full size iron man torso!! (If it wasn't £5000 it would have been purchased and never taken off by Declan)

That night we waved good bye once again to Beijing and boarded a night train to nowhere!!