Wednesday 21st 0930hrs-
Arived in Beijing train station and poured out of the train along with the 2000 other people who were onboard. It certainly wouldn't have been hard to pick us out the crowd as we stuck out like sore thumbs. With no clue where our hostel was that we had booked we barged our way towards a taxi and Susan rattled the door and told him to open his boot. The poor guy didn't have a clue why this white chick was tryin to do over his motor but obliged all the same and pinged his boot open. We must have picked the dumbest taxi driver in the world as he had to stop en route to ask someone for directions.....aaah well finally get to hostel and it only cost us 1 pound.
Already we have noticed the changes, the people are friendlier and not too many stares but the city is still full of smog. We are staying in the nicest hutong in the City in a place called Downtown Backpackers. We called Fraser ( Susan's neighbours son) another contact!! and arranged to meet him @ 1930hrs, agreeing that we would only have a couple of beers so we didn't make an arse of Susan AGAIN. The temperature was about minus 5 and the government control the central heating so yep you guessed it.....they turned it off when we arrived. So it was out with the sleeping bags and into bed for a few zeds. Got our stinky bodys out of bed, got showered and went off to meet Fraser. He took us to a restaraunt called 'The Tree' which sells the best pizza in town, had some grub and a few bevs and talked for a while. Fraser asked us to come to his school which he manages and speak to his students for an hour and answer some of their questions. We pondered over the idea and then Susan decided the beamer she would take might melt her beatiful features, so we opted out and made our excuses.

Thursday 22nd November -
Had our free breakfast at hostel, met our room mates (one guy from Vietnam,one guy from USA and one guy from Germany) the room is a bombsite, put in 10tonnes of laundry and took bus to The Forbidden City and Tianamen Square. On arrival through the main gate we were greeted like movie stars!! One woman asked us for our picture. We were a tad embarassed but we gave our permission and said CHEESE. Good deed done for the day we turned to make our way thru the city......oh no 'I dinnae think so' chased by screaming Chinese ladies we had about 10 of them all lined up ready to have their pictures taken with the Laney the giant and curly Sue. Jaws aching from all the smiles and bums numb from the biting cold.....we eventually got to see the Forbidden City. We spent all day walking around the maze of buildings and alleyways and we just figured out the map before it was time to shoot back to the Hutong for coffee and decide on an eaterie for din dins. It is cheaper to eat out than in here and the beer is only a pound and that's in the restaurant. On the way back we stopped at a wee shop to buy some H2O and the women in the shop were all pointing at Susan and touching her hair.....hohohoho what a beamer she took.

Friday 23rd November-
0830 had brekkie and went to Jingshan Park - which is a big hill that looks over the Forbidden city. We walked from there up to the Yonghe Lamasery which holds an 18metre standing Buddha. All the signs around the place said no photography but the cheeky wee monks forgot to put a sign outside this bad boy, so i whipped the camera from my bag and got down on my knees.......no not to pray.....but to get some flash photography bouncin off his big golden belly. It was only 2 clicks later that i was tapped on the shoulder by a big bald guy wearin a broon robe tellin me ' No Foto, No Foto'. Of course out of respect for the monk Susan said i should delete them and of course i said 'if he wants me to delete it he can try askin me to. Unfortunately for him they don't teach English in monk school so he had nae luck....GET IN!! Laney - 1 Monks - 0.
En route to Ditan park which holds a huge market we picked up some sticky toffee baby apples....they were strange but nice. After trying to bargain for some long johns to keep our bahookis warm but failing miserably we went for a delicious Italian and went home to bed.

Saturday 24th Novembber -
We were rudely awakened by our fellow room mates at 0330hrs, and on rising at 0800hrs we saw some random chick bunked up with the wee German dude. Dirty wee Saurkraut!!
We wandered along aimlessly today through Hutongs surrounding Hou Hai lake and watched the chinese people go by their day to day business. A few Rickshaws tried to get us onboard their bikes but quickly turned foot when i opened up into a beatiful rendition of Celine Dions 'All by Myself'. First time i think we have seen a Chinese person laughing. For dinner we went to a small cafe recommended for its dumlings, so we ordered 30 and 2 beers. They were rather tasty and the 30 was more than enough!! If the lady hadn't stopped us we would have ordered about 90 of the wee things.

Sunday 25th November -
We went to the Temple of Heaven and bought 2 hats and bartered her down to 2 pound for the two of them. We walked for miles and it was absolutley freezing but seeing as we had washed our hair this morning we didn't want to don our hats and ruin the fabulous do's we had created. We saw the soldiers trekking around Tianamen Square on our way home and we went to a fantastic chinese for dinner, and had 2 huge meals and a massive bottle of coke for 2 pound all in. Once we had beefed up our bellies we went out to the Kung Fu show we booked thru the hostel. It was ok but not as good as the acrobatics we had seen the previous night.

Monday 26th November -
0730hrs booked Great Wall and went to the embassy. Day of organising , but not much getting organised. Can't wait for dinner!!!!! Yippee the heating is back on and it's time for a chinese lesson from Susan. She must have been going to early morning classes while i was still sleeping.....now i know how to ask for condoms, toilets and beer.....ready for anything. We have been struggling to download our photos so we went to the Kodak shop to see if they could try too but no luck. Susan was so annoyed with the whole situation that she decided to throw herself down the stairs outside the shop, sprawling the contents of her handbag across the street and cutting her wee paw. Decided as a result of this horrific accident we would treat the shock with another chinese and head to bed early for our hike across the Great Wall in the morning.

Tuesday 27th November -
0600hrs up and dressed for our walk. 3 hr drive and we had some questionable treats from the local bakery for breakfast. We arrived at 0930hrs and started the walk. We could not have asked for a more glorious day. We were with a great group of people and the sun was splitting the sky. The 10k trek consisted of lots of almost vertical ascents and descents and we completed 30 towers. It was a little tough but very rewarding, and the view were spectacular. When we came to the end we took the flying fox death slide to the lake at the bottom. We were told it would go faster if you did it in pairs so you can imagine the super sonic speed we were traveeling at with Sue and my asses strapped together. The friction on the wire almost burnt a hole right through it!! Luckily there was a bar at the bottom where we drank an ice cool beer and stocked up for the bus. We sat with our pals Kate and Nick and 2 beers more and we were gibbering nonsense. The effects of no food and a hard days trekking. We all piled off the bus at the first pee stop and when we were on the road again everyone had zonked!! Total wipeout!!

Got back to the hostel and our Oz mates were waiting to say goodbye as they were off to Tibet, cuddles and kisses and they were off and we were off for dinner and a carryout. We started drinking games and somehow we had polished off a bottle of vodka between the 4 of us, so it was back off to the offy for Nick and Elaine to purchase another one. Got the I-pod out and started a small party. Over the course of the night Susan quenched her thirst with around 1 bottle of Voddy to herself and in the process re christened Elaine as GroB (german for large) Tit, and poor Kate was re named 'Who's Dick'. A good night was had by all and we shot off to our pits at about 3am.

Wednesday 28th November -
0800hrs Laney the rooster gets our asses out of bed and down for the free food. We are feeling like crap but struggle on all the same. We watched 2 movies and played some cards and took a taxi to the train station with our room mate Ronin for our train to Xian. Onboard and read our books till lights out. What a week. We loved Beijing and the Great Wall is something that should be experienced by everyone!! Definitely a wonder of the world.....especially when we are on it :o)