The beds all over China are so hard and stiff so that you wake up in actual pain from sleeping on your side. I don't know how they manage it! So although it was better than a seat it was still not so comfy!

We arrived in Beijing at about 7 in the morning and took the subway to the hostel. The first subway we got had adverts in the tunnels that followed the train. It was very cool. But we didn't see it again throughout our time in China. We arrived at the hostel at about 8 and it was situated in a hutong part of Beijing. Hutongs are like little alleyway communities that are slowly being knocked down to make way for taller buildings like apartment blocks I guess.

We couldn't check in because it was so early but the woman let us have a free breakfast which was nice. We decided today to go to the drum and bell tower and walk through some more hutongs to get there and then visit the national museum because it would be shut tomorrow.

We walked to the bell and drum towers down a much more touristy hutong place than the one we were staying at. And there we found a hostel that did the great wall hike we wanted to do for £6.50 each less than our hostels prices. It also didn't start till half 8 but our hostels started at 6.20(?!) So we actually got more time in bed even though we had to travel back to this hostel.

The drum and bell towers were nice to look at but we didn't go in because they didn't accept our student cards and we didn't want to pay full price. It seemed like the type of place that looks more impressive on the outside than the inside. The two towers were built as a method of time keeping in olden day China, lonely planet described it as the Oriental version of big Ben. We did luckily manage to get there as the drums started going off to signify that it was 11am. It really wasn't that spectacular though. Maybe if your inside it is? Who knows. I'm glad that we hadn't purposely went there to hear it because I would have been disappointed.

Next up we got the subway to the museum which is located by Tiananmen square, we were exhausted by this point after our not so comfortable train and while the building was impressive the artefacts were not. The massive building had a lovely exhibition on ancient China in the basement which had different rooms for different time periods of China, right back to Neolithic times. But the rest of the rooms as far as we could see were just art. It is more of an art gallery than "Chinas national museum". China has a lot more to offer than rooms full of art for its national museum.

After this we decided to head back to the hostel and hope our room was ready. It was an we had an hours nap. Our feet were killing we were so worried about hike tomorrow if we felt like this after a half day around Beijing. We ordered in food from a takeaway round the corner. We got loads of food! For about £3.80. They even threw in a massive chicken rice soup thing for free. We couldn't even finish it all. We slept pretty early that night ready for the hike tomorrow.

See next blog for the great wall hike.

After the great wall hike, we managed to get dropped off right by our hostel. So we went back got changed and then headed out for some food we decided to treat ourselves to Peking duck which is like duck at home apart from not shredded and it comes from Beijing but it is expensive. We had to get the tube there as we used lonely planet to help us find somewhere to get duck. But when we got to the station we realised that the station we needed wasn't on the map. This meant we had to walk another kilometre from the next closest station.

When we got to the restaurant which looked pretty posh we saw the big building site that must be the station we needed. It hadn't been built yet but lonely planet had stuck it on the map anyway. How helpful. Not. The duck cost close to £12 and the chef sliced it right in front of us! We also got pancakes, cucumber, onion and plum sauce just like at home! It was good.

The next day it rained. It rained all day. We were sick of being in walking shoes and decided to wear flip flops but this meant that the back of our legs got covered in mud from being flicked up by the flip flops. We had to go to the forbidden city today as it was our last day in Beijing. We were planning to get a night train to Pingyao tomorrow so we would have had a full extra day in Beijing but because everything was full we actually had to get a 9:15 train the next day.

Luckily I'd managed to get an umbrella in Shanghai but the rain wasn't heavy it was just constant. The forbidden city looked really amazing. Just like what you expect China to look like. It was busy with Chinese tourists but even here we didn't see many westerners. This is where the emperor of China lived and it was forbidden (hence the name) to the public for about 500 years. A lot of it is still cut off from public viewing but you can see the main building complex. Everything is intricately designed and the place is huge which gives you a feeling of the importance of the place. We strolled through right to the end at the other side. But after this we wanted to go back to Tiananmen square and there are no subway stations this side of the forbidden city. So we had to walk all the way back which took us probably 40 mins. It didn't help that both sides of the pavement were under construction as this got us extra muddy.

Tiananmen square had really good views from all sides of the square and this is where general Mao's body is kept but it was only open until 12 so we were hours and hours too late.

After we got the subway to try and find a lamb place that lonely planet recommended but again it didn't exist and so we wasted a lot of time. After this we decided to go to the night market where weird food things are sold. But after getting off the subway we went in completely the wrong direction and it so it took us forever to find it. Eventually when we found the market which is just off a major shopping street like Oxford Street size. The market sold crazy crazy stuff like snake, centipede, spiders, sheep balls and silk worms. All on a stick. They sold normal stuff too and we didn't even see any Chinese people eating the bugs so it might just be for tourists. We could take photos though. No one seems to mind anything in China which makes it a good place to visit.