Day 2 in Beijing.

Today is the day we meet our tour guide and fellow travellers. Had a terrible nights sleep still trying to get used to the time change.

The smog was even worse today and the temp has dropped but still ok to wear a t-shirt & jeans. We decided to go to the Summer Balace so we got the subway which is 2yuan 20p and a taxi, the taxi journey was about 20mins and only cost 30yuan which is about £3 BARGAIN! The subway is brilliant apart from people spitting on the floor and hocking up all the time (this is normal In China) so basically I still have a cold (are you surprised?).

Arrived at the Palace & it was heaving, the first time we have seen quite a few Westerners! But out of all the people that were there a big group of chinese people made Lee take their photo, then every time he saw them he felt the need to nod & smile. We get stared at a lot and one guy decided to record us on his phone, it is strange but we just laugh about it.

The Palace was amazing and the mist across the lake was breathtaking and made the pictures look fab. It is massive and unfortunately because we were late we didn't get to see it all. We went on a nice little Dragon Boat ride too. Lee queued to get the tickets, but was getting nowhere fast - no such thing a queuing here!

We met our tour guide Deona - she is really nice and knows China like the back of her hand. The rest of our tour group are really nice as well we have people from Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Uk and Austria. We had a lovely banquet in an authentic Chinese restaurant all together, Deona ordered the food for us. The main disk was duck, I said I don't eat duck, she said don't worry we don't eat Dog! Must be my accent.

We went to the night Market! Well the night Market was interesting to say the least, if you enjoy Scorpions, spiders or anything you can think of on a stick then that is the place to be. Plus the smell was horrendous.

P.s. Photos to follow with the proof.

P.s.s. me & Lee did our first hand wash in the sink tonight and used our washing line for the first time. Who is betting that will wake us up in the middle of the night when it has fallen down.