Day 3/4/5

Sorry for not updating the blog for a while. We have been unable to logon to this site. Anyway. On day 3, it was all about the Forbidden City.
By this time, we had started to learn about actually looking at the map scale because what only seems like an inch on map is actually 3kms and we'd walked about 20km's on each of the previous days.

So we got to the Forbidden City and wow, this really is a city. It's crazy to think that this was really two family rulers home effectively for 500 years - the place is huge and has some amazing buildings to view but you need to be strong and force your way in if you want to view them. You learn very quickly not to be nice and let one person in with whatever you do because if you do, 10 will sneak on in as well....
So we ambled round this huge city, adding a few more km's to the walking boots whilst listening to an audio commentary and learning all about Ming we'd stop d Qing. As we're backpackers, we decided to share the audio though and so we'd stop and listen together into the one ear piece. This seemed to amuse many Chinese and they weren't bothered about staring at us, smilelaugh and talk about it in their group and all smilelaugh together. Fine the first time, after numerous, boring.....

It was great to see and experience but towards the end, the audio woman started to get annoying - she just went on and on and on and on. And as soon as you passed through a gate or past another building, she started again. Must be like being married to a nagging wife !!! So we dropped her and made an exit. By this time we'd started to realise that we weren't being particularly good to our backs and we were both struggling and looking at the map, it was about 5km to the restaurant we'd earmarked (veggie), so when a little tuck tuck type man went by, we hailed him over for an experience.
We haggled him down to what was agreed as 40 yuan (about £4) but he spoke no english. So off we went on what, as everyone who has been on one will probably say, is an experience but one where you nearly got hit, did some hitting or in our case nearly reversed into on a main road. It was a good laugh though. So we turn up and surprise surprise our little man tries the white man tax. He'd been negotiating in dollars and us in yuan. He started to produce these little cards to say he was disabled and we had to pay $70 dollars and then $30 dollars. Told him politely to bog off. Stupidly we only had 100 yuan so in the end, he opened his wallet and I politely but firmly took the 50 yuan in return for our 100. We left feeling a bit annoyed but then again our fault for not having change and a lesson learnt. In context any tube journey costs 4 yuan for both of us (40p).

Day 4

As we'd both been struggling already with our backs, we decided to take it a little easier today and go to the Summer Palace. This is about 12kms outside Beijing on a tube and was the place where the rulers would retreat to (from the Forbidden City) in the heat of the summer.

We walked aroud the beautiful park and ended up at the big lake named kumming. We decided to go crazy and buy an ice cream as it was such a lovely day, we'd hire a motorboat (backs wouldn't agree to a pedallo) for an hour. The boat did about 5 mph so we cruised over to the south island and then down a few of the smaller canals, enjoying both the scenary, the sun and the peace (the main lake is hub of all tour groups again).

We were getting hungry so decided to make our way over to Donghuamen Night market. We'd heard the stuff about it and even seen it on Idiot abroad but didn't think it could all be like that. How wrong were we, it was a food zoo with everything from spiders, frogs, cockcroachs, sea horses but the favourite was the dog stew. We found ourselves feeling a little less hungry so went home via the dumpling shop!!

Day 5

Silk market was on the agenda so we went there first thing. The market is huge and spread across many floors. You can get everything you desire in terms of clothing, jewellery, electronics, arts and craft etc etc. There are abotu 33 people working every stall and the pretty much pull you in if you happen to look their way. Marie decided she wanted some silk pyjama's so we had a look in a couple of stalls before we found one she liked. So with no clear price, the price determination started. She decided to start at 1500 yaun (£150) but as we were special and today ended in day, she would let us have them for 850 yuan. After some time, she asked what we wanted to pay and we said 100 yuan. This didn't seem to please her but after a while we agreed on 200yuan. It was good fun but looking back, we probably should have walked away and seen if she would have sold for 100 yuan but it was a good experience.

As we had nothing else to buy, it seemed silly to stay in the market so we headed off to the park (Jingshan) behind the forbidden city. It is basically the earth from the Forbidden City moat piled up to make a huge hill. At the top you get some great views over the city.

After a while, it was a quick dinner followed by getting back to the hostel because as it was a saturday night we'd booked up to see the Kung Fu show at the Red Theater. We decided that some pasta would be good, so we found a place and headed in. Of course, they didn't have any pasta for Marie so she took the rice and mushroom back, which was literally some plain rice, a few mushrooms and a bit of cheese. No flavours what so ever. Martin had pesto pasta which as everyone will always know, is only at it's best when served with a dairylea slice!! I guess it serves us right for trying to eat western food in China. Stick to what's local.

The kung fu show was good although very tourist aimed. It would have been more fun if they were actual kung practionists instead of actors. Our ticket included transport but onthe way there the guy asked if he gave us 30 yuan, if we'd take a taxi home as his car was broke and as we went along, he wasn't lying. To gain a few yuans we thought however that we'd take the tube. We had no map except what was on the back of the ticket but headed off anyway. Our little walk was about 45 mins and we ended up at Beijing Railway station, which is definitely the not so nice part of Beijing. Eventually however we got home safely. On plus point on this city is that you never feel unsafe even late at night on the dark streets