Ni Hao China!

We arrived in Beijing at around 2.30pm yesterday and exited the station, which was absolute bedlam. We negotiated a taxi ride to the hotel. Again, taxis were trying to charge about 5 times more than they should but we managed to negotiate down to double the price it should have cost.

Today we had a look out into Beijing. The streets are clean and the pollution isn't half as bad as we'd anticipated; I guess it's far worse in the summer heat. The coughing up phlegm is done with far more gusto and more frequency than in Mongolia.

We had a look around a clothing market as I'm desperate for some more trousers; we wandered around the Hutong area and went to Jinshang Park where you get a view over the Forbidden City. The Hutong is a network of lanes and alleyways running across the city from east to west. Single storey houses were built around a central courtyard. However these are disappearing as the capital reconstructs itself. We attempted to go to Tiananmen Square at the same time about 30% of Beijing's population (15 million-ish) decided to do so. We learned that it is 'Golden Week' which is a week long national holiday for Chinese people so everywhere is heaving. We seriously have never seen so many people in one place.

We got a taxi back to the hotel and at 6pm we met our tour leader and the rest of the group; we are now doing a 2 week tour to Shanghai with Imaginative Traveller. There are 11 in the group; Sandra and Louise from Canada, Brian, Jean, Gemma, Gemma and Adie from the UK, Pierre from Switzerland and Steve from Sweden. The tour leader is Susan from China. We all ate out and headed to bed early as we have a 6am start tomorrow to climb a section of the Great Wall.