After arrival in my hostel I met some of my room mates: two blonde Swedish girls were staying at the same hostel and were kind enough to explain me how to get to the metro and told me the nice places to shop. I could see the temptation to buy lots of cheap stuff is very real, as they had a hard time stuffing their suitcases with, amongst others, eight pairs of shoes.

After lunch I set out on my exploration: today I visited the Drum-tower and some smal rip-off temple where they had an wood-carvings exposition. According to the guide the wood carvings were ancient, however the strong smell of varnish did not really comfort me. This area of the town is however very nice with lots of shops, bars etc.

On my way back I decided to take a peek at Ti'anmen square, which really impressed me by its' ENORMOUS size. As I followed the crowd I appeared to be just in time to see the ceremonial lowering of the flag. While waiting for the ceremony to start, some Chinese guy started talking to me. The funny thing was that he had just started his studies in Petroleum Engineering and was really looking to go study abroad, so I talked to him about the IFP-school and my studies.

The way back took a while since I continuously got lost in the small streets to the hostel (wandering around for ~ 1 hr), which in the end appeared to be quite close .

Back in the hostel I enjoyed a large beer and got ready for the next day of exploration!