Arrive into Beijing, neither impressed nor unimpressed. From my friends comments from a recent visit to Beijing re: the airport I was expecting a grand and humungous spectacule. That I was not greeted with, instead there is a shuttle bus that drove us to a grey building. One may even draw comparisons to a concentration camp.....across the run way you can see what I imagine/hope will be the airport we fly out of as the architect looks grand and humungous.

Get luggage, no problems, success. Tourist information desk? Forget it. Tour information? No problem. But that's not what we want. Keeping it simple we follow the given instructions from the guesthouse. Shuttle bus #2; done. Thinking it's be a good idea to learn '''thankyou'' in Chinese (always wanting to improve) we ask the ticket man, "how do we say ''thankyou'' in Chinese?'' Blank expression and temples pulsing this guy does not have any idea. We abandon this notion and find our bus.

Backing up to the furthest from the front of the bus we wait for the bus to move. Looking around we discuss our opinions on Beijing/China so far. Bearing in mind we've been here for the maximum of 2 hours and have just departed from a plane full of Koreans. We come to a loose conclusion that perhaps there is a similar essence to Korea. Our thoughts probably influenced by the image set before us; a bus load of black heads.

Driving into the actual city centre the buildings soon become more impressive, unique and substantial. Beijing is using it's money and power effectively. Admittedly, they do have the Olympics in about 2 weeks! All systems are go, go, go! Not seeing a grand, clean city in what? 11 MONTHS! This moment is really rather flaberghasting. Shiny new shops, clean roads, cars that seem to stop at red lights and go on green, huge buildings....''this is pretty cool'', I'm thinking to myself.There is more than 2 different colours of cars and different makes (unlike in Korea...white or black Hyundai or Kia car only.) The taxis come in a few colours too. Green, blue and burgundy; all have a yellow band around their centre though. Official taxi? These taxi men operate a little different from those in Korea. No persistant beeping to draw your attention, no whizzing passed you to make you see your entire life flash before your eyes. In no way am I suggesting that they don't drive fast, that'd be a certain lie!

Unsuccessful in flagging down a taxi (which is strange a new concept to us as in Korea you just need to stand still for 2 secs and a taxi is right beside you. We walk in the heat and attempt to navigate our way to Temple side Guest house. First impressions of the city is that is pretty clean no rubbish all over the pavement nor in blue bin liners everywhere like you see in Korea. They actually have bins here that promote recycling. We later find out from a guy staying in our hostel who has visited Beijing only a couple of years ago that the city is extremely cleaner that from his last visit. Could it have something to do with the Olympics rapidly approaching? I think so. I saw on CNN that Beijing are trying to reduce their pollution. The plan started this week apparently. The pollution is so bad here that you constantly think that it is foggy. I also saw on CNN a Chinese man claiming that the pollution does appear worse because of the weather conditions. Fog and heat can make the appearance of pollution drastically worse. Hmmm good luck trying to clean it up in 2 weeks!? A Finnish guy on the bus home told us that a day in Beijing is like smoking 70 fags....nice.... Either way there isn't any blue bags full of crap and litter laying around everywhere like in Seoul so I'm happy!

Eventually, we get to the guest house after walking too far and asking locals for directions. It seems that the locals expect you to be able to speak/understand Mandarin on arrival into China. So, in a conversation with a local involved a lot of nodding in agreement and walking away shrugging our shoulders and saying "yeah, so I don't know what they said."

Temple side Guest house is located down one of Beijings 'hutongs' a more exotic word for alley ways. In the Lonely Planet guide book they have a small section about the 'hutongs' and they are also listed in the "Top 5 Things in Beijing." Walking through the hutong had a shanty esque vibe t it. Drying shabby clothes on tough pieces of wire, roofs looking like they're about to fall off in places, few drapping wires, abandoned looking rusty bikes, walls of the buildings flaking the 30 year old (at least) paint work. All in a grey colour scheme. The locals hanging out on a piece of exercise equipment, old sofas that look as though they must have been soaking up wet weather for a couple of decades! But there is a relaxed atmosphere as you walk past the elderly people sitting around. No hostility and as soon as you greet them with a smile and"ni hao" they're even more welcoming. Seeing part of the "real" China as opposed to the sugar coated image they provide you 25 metres away.

Our guest house is old looking on the outside but has a cuteness to it that is inviting. A small kitten roams around the place freely, so freely that one night I awoke one night to find her in our room meowwing at a ridiculous time in the morning...she soon got tossed outside....

We dump our stuff, shower and book our tour to the Great Wall through the guest house. Option 2. Ba Da King section; the most commercial, but it's the only one that takes you to the Ming Tomb that my friends wanted to see. Ba Da Ling does have the highest point of the wall to it's location though. So, that's good to know!

Nest stop; Forbidden City. Taking a different route to the one we just walked to get to the guest house, we cross several roads with flashing green men to guide us. Unlike Korea though, where the little man starts flashing immediately but still gives you plenty of time to cross, China don't mess around. Their little green man means it when he starts flashing. It flashes twice and then the automobiles move like lightning. Mostly towards pedestrians. The truth is before getting to China I had my concerns about the traffic and had serious doubts about not getting travel insurance. It wasn't that bad though. Tough bird innit.

We come across a bridge, nice view and we can see some temples and other statues that we just presume are important but aren't on our agenda, therefore not bothered by them. The soldier/guard standing on a box underneath a parasol has different thoughts. As soon as I take out my camera a yelp from his direction is heard. "Yagalalababa" and a gesture telling me no pictures. I don't even know what I'm trying to take a picture of but he's bothered me all the same. Back off lad! (I still didn't take any pictures, I was a bit intimidated.)

Approaching the Forbidden City (FC) we were able to see how absolutely huge and grand this place really is. Surrounded by a wide moat which glistened gentle in the sunshine. Nice and sunny....but boy, was it hot! Hot but NOT sticky like in Korea.....didn't quite want to peel my skin off and scrub it.

A quick photo opportunity and we are at the back entrance to the FC. Finally, we're at the ticket booth and are told that we only have an hour and 20 minutes until it closes. Pondering the time situation for a moment and concluding "what else are we going to do today?" we pay up our 60 yuan (£4) and head inside. Further you go the quicker you realise and attempt to fathom how big this place really is. 7000 square metres is a pretty impressive amount of space to wonder around in little over an hour. Refusing a guide and not being prepared to pay for an audio dialog we just stroll about admiring all the decorative details in the roofs and arches. More importantly, those "great photo spots" where you would have to be a complete idiot not to be able to capture a great photo.

Plodding along it seems as though this is just an endless walkway to the never ending gates. Once through a gate we might come upon a courtyard that seemed to multiply by 100 through every gate you walked through. Labyrinth and Alice in Wonderland soon sprung to mind.

Unable to filter out the locals voices, I spent some time thinking about the way that it sounds. Unlike the other Asian languages I've heard lately, the Chinese has a particular peculiarity to it. All I can think is that I've heard so many people in the past mock their language....still waiting for the replacement of 'R' to 'L' in words.

FC's walls are terracotta mostly, and had their decorative parts of which I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the temples in Korea. Slightly different colour scheme....not much yellow. As far as I know, that's due to the Emperor being the only one who was permitted to wear yellow. Power trip?

There's about 9,000 rooms in the FC. Each with their own purpose and name. Over the Ming and Qing dynasties there were 9,000 concubines and 700,000 eunuchs! Will I ever understand why a man would mutate himself for another man? Probably not. And, I'm ok with that.

Stepping through every gate and entering the huge courtyards I still can't quite grasp the notion of this project. Even nowadays a project on this scale would take a long time and money and for it to uphold after being weathered etc (granted it is constantly being restored) it's pretty amazing. Getting lost and trying to work out which part of this place was used to film the movie "The Last Emperor" is beyond me. As soon as I thought I knew we'd find another gate and bam...the "I'm not sure now" happens and I give up trying to be a smart arse!

Finally, we're out! Chinese squatting around trees in groups having snacks or trying to sell their dodgy merchandise we just stroll pass. Out to the view of Tinanmen Square. The biggest public square in the world. According to the internet and the Chinese. The fact of what happened here is the "wow" factor if you can even call it that. Besides that...it's just a big public bunch of slabs that is guarded heavily and closed to the public after dark. Within the vicinity of the area are several monuments, a museum (which I didn't go in) and a view of both the FC and the official countdown to the Olympics! Nice.

Now it's time to check out the local delicacy...Peking Duck pancakes. Referring to the lonely planet we know there is a road nicknamed "DUCK STREET" Naturally, we head there. A little confused we ask an elderly Chinese lady that was more than happy to help but spoke little to no English...thanks, but you're not helping. A young guy is soon to rescue us. Points us to our 10 minute walk to disappointment. Duck Street is more like Duck Corner. 4 restaurants in a huge city with 15 million people can not claim that 4 restaurants next to each other can be called a street. The duck was kinda grizzling and unsexy. Sara was determined to have "sexy" duck......Instead we saw a "sexy" turtle being served for a "reasonable" price of 180 yuan....

Eat up and head back to Temple side. We have a room mate; Ryan from Nottingham. He's been on the trans siberian(?) train. Just came from Mongolia and let's us know all we need to know about Beijing. .....some of it good.....some of it........................