Nihau from Beijing!

Well arriving here from spick and span Japan was a bit of a culture shock! We went to a local restaurant on the first evening and ate a meal surrounded by people spitting on the floor and throwing half smoked cigarettes still burning down next to us! The weather was also a shock at minus 10 degrees. The guesthouse we are staying in is a really sweet local place where the people are super friendly but it's pretty chilly with our room opening onto a courtyard and barely lukewarm water in the very damp bathroom...a true cultural experience!

On Friday we set out for the Forbidden city. We mastered the subway which is a super cheap way to get around at 2 Yuan each (20p) for anywhere you want to go- we got off at Tianneman square which is huge- in fact the biggest town square in the world. It was covered in snow and pretty empty- amazing that during the protest there were over a million people there. We continued walking to the forbidden city after bashing our way though a lot of people trying to con us that we had been warned about and loads more selling panda hats.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household of wives and concubines, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex is absolutely huge, consisting of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covering 720,000 square meters. It is truly stunning, especially snow covered. We wandered around and purchased another ticket to see the hall of clocks which had some amazing pieces from China, France, the UK and Switzerland. They are so opulant some of them really make you laugh!

At 4pm a guy with a loud speaker shouted in our ear and waved his arms and we assumed that meant it was time to go. Being amongst the last few to leave we got some great pictures of the buidings with noone in them and also saw the guards doing their evening drill which involved a lot of running, shouting and some very scary moves with huge bayonet guns. From there we went to the Silk Market which we had heard is the place for shopping. It was quite ridiculous- 5 floors of the most convincing fake stuff I have ever seen in my life- Paul Frank, Abercrombie and Fitch, Max Mara and even Iphones, Ipods and Nintendo Wiis which apparently do work according to the people in our hostel. Charles' eyes nearly popped out of his head when we went to the bottom floor where the shoes were as there was row after row of Nike trainers. The problem was that the staff were so ridiculously pushy, sometimes even dragging you into their stall- funnily enough they were the first people we had met that spoke English! I picked up some very convincing UGG boots just to look at and the woman was determined to sell them to me. I said no and walked away but then after she shouted 100Yuan at me (9quid) down the aisle I had to go back and get them as my feet had been freezing all day! Charles was sold a pair of Nike trainers for 30quid and looked very pleased with himself. It almost took the disspointment out of getting his 34inch waist trousers home and not being able to do them up (it was the sizing not the food we've been eating!)

Yesterday we got up at 5am to make the 3 hour trip to the Great Wall. We had booked to do a 12Km hike and were slightly surprised to recieve loads of instructions in the minisbus about how to walk up there and where to get off- aren't you coming with us? We asked the guide. Oh no she said its far to hard for me to do! And it was quite a walk- hundreds of very steep steps up and down but the views made up for it. The old Mongolia on one side and China on the other with beautiful snow covered mountains. Although it was absolutely Freezing- well 10degrees colder than freezing with a cold wind that could slice through beancurd to be precise we decided that it was actually the best time of year as it was absolutely empty- on most of it we were the only people. Nothing can describe how stunning it is- we've all seen it on the TV which makes it seem even stranger when you are standing on top of it but it is huge. Our guide reckoned that if you took all the bricks you would be able to build a one metre high wall all the way round the world. 12km later and four hours later we were pretty tired and it was a after crossing a very dodgy bridge across a frozen river where the wall had broken down (with a sign saying forbidden for alcholics of those with mental illness at the end) the flying fox to get off the wall was a fun way to finish the trip. It did feel very dodgy though so we were glad to let others go down first!

We got back to the guesthouse around 6 and then went out for dinner where we had some super spicy fish covered in chillies, chilli oil and thousands of peppecorns then collapsed into bed. We slept very well after all of that activity and woke up this morning with very sore calves! Today we had a lovely dumpling lunch and then visited Lama temple which is the biggest buddhist temple outside of Tibet andis also home to a huge Buddha carved out of a singe sandalwood tree which you can't quite believe when you see it. We wandered round there soaking up the incense that permeated the air and then got back on the subway to locate a market that had been recommended to us as much better than the one we had been to aimed at foreigners. It was impossible to find- we just had to follow where everyone was coming from with plastic bags- eventually we went through a door and there it was- boy were the people who ran our hostel right- we were the only foreigners in this one and everything was a quarter of the price! 2 more purchases of Nike trainers later for 100Yuan (9quid) each Charles was not so happy with his previous price paid at the silk market! Here Converse were 4pounds.... The only problem was that we spent so long in the trainer section for Charles by the time I was allowed to go and look at the clothes everything was shut so nothing for me!

So that's our introduction to China- the sound of the country is definately that of people spitting everywhere and noone wants to speak to you at all- in restaurants the waiting staff have huge arguements over who is going to bring the dish to your table. Everywhere is unbelievably overstaffed so the government can say they have full employment- on the motorway on the way from the airport we saw 5 people standing there with clothes in their hands whose job it was to polish the barrier and there are National guard everywhere in long green coats and big furry hats. It most definately is not a free country...in fact I am surprised I could even get online to write this as most sites with any blog on them are blocked....still I'm sure that it has a lot to offer us...!