We were excited and nervous in equal measures about going to China. Everything we had heard and read told us if you don't speak any Chinese then you need to book a tour. We tried but they were seriously expensive and not on the right dates. We thought perhaps when we got to Beijing we would be able to sort something out and we did consider not going to China because it was so hard to sort out visas.

The flight over was great as we had free food and our choice of movies. A big step up from the Easyjet-style flights we've been taking with AirAsia. When we landed we found there was a metro under the airport and it was dead easy to work out where we wanted to go, buy tickets and get off at the right stop. Everything was in Chinese and English and there were lights on the station names on the train to tell you exactly where you were. We found our hostel down a really clean alleyway and they spoke perfect English. China is going to be easy peasy! Or so I thought. After having a rest we wondered around our hostel area which is on the outskirts of Beijing. Literally everything was written in Chinese with no English translation and just buying water in a shop they don't even know how to tell you the price in English. And this is where they hosted the olympics?! So maybe it'll be a bit more of a challenge than I initially thought!

I don't know what I expected from Beijing but it didn't strike me as a capital city. It still has a few skyscrapers and big shopping malls and it is metropolitan but at the same time you have lots of little alleyways called hutongs where old people sit and play cards and drink tea. There's no traffic because the carriageways are 5 or 6 lanes wide each side and the streets and pavements are spotless. One thing I noticed straight away was how nice the people were. Perhaps this was because we came straight from Hanoi but there's no pushing and shoving to get on the metro and people will chat away in Chinese to you even though you don't have a clue what they're on about. I was genuinely surprised.

Unfortunately it is more expensive than we have been used to and so we had to stay in a dorm. The hostel was pretty cool though and the first night we were there they held a party for the dragon boat festival. They showed us how to make Chinese style dumplings (with varying success) and then brought us a feast of Chinese food including curry, noodles, potatoes as well as the dumplings we had made and free beer. That saved us having to struggle to read a Chinese menu for the first night anyway! There were 4 of us in our dorm room altogether, me, Bryan, a nice Dutch girl and a nocturnal guy who always came in to bed and passed out when we were just getting up at 10am! We have no idea where he went every night! We also met a group of French people 2 of which didn't speak very good English so I got to practice my French whilst playing a few particularly rowdy games of UNO!

We visited most of the obligatory sights but the main one was of course the Great Wall of China. There was not a chance we were going to miss that one out. Even though it was quite expensive we managed to save a little bit by getting there ourselves rather than taking a tour which was surprisingly easy. The wall involved a hell of a lot of climbing (good practice for the inca trail) but it was absolutely worth it. The views were fantastic and the wall is really quite amazing. Fortunately we managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 5.30am to get to the wall early which was a great decision because it was almost empty. After a couple of hours the hoards of people in tour groups started arriving but at least we'd managed to get a few pics with no random people in.

We saw a few other attractions which mainly included ancient palaces belonging to various emperors. We soon found out that everything in China involves a serious amount of walking but not a lot of structure or logic to the layout. These sites go on for miles and there's always 3 or 4 entrances and you're never quite sure where you are or where you're meant to go. It's pretty pointless asking anyone because they're not likely to understand you. After the first few days we had very sore feet and I felt like we'd seen the exact same buildings a million times (as you can probably see from the photos they all look the same right?). What stood out for me the most were the gardens, no one does a garden as well as the Chinese they're just so pretty and tranquil. We went to the Altar of Heaven palace which had a huge rose garden as just one part of its extensive grounds. We also got lost when trying to find the Summer Palace, as one sign said left another said right. Luckily a young Chinese guy could see we looked lost and said he was looking for it too but he had a map so we could go with him. He had travelled from the distant Chinese countryside to see Beijing and despite saying his English was poor it was actually very good. It was incredibly helpful having someone who understands the signs and language tagging along with us. Definitely a time-saver. The strangest thing for us was that Chinese people actually wanted to take our photo. If we sat down anywhere for a rest for more than 5 minutes it seemed as though we actually became the tourist attraction! A lot would come and ask if they could have their photo with us (in Chinese of course!) but most people would just try and take a sneaky photo of us when they thought we weren't looking! I find it hilarious and have no idea why they would want photos of random strangers! You would have thought in the capital city they would be used to seeing foreigners but in actual fact there weren't that many.

I think arriving in China is the first time I have actually really felt like we are travelling. It is a bit of a culture shock when you realise no one speaks any English and their lives really are quite different. One thing I can't get used to is that the Chinese believe in getting all the bad stuff out of them so hocking and flemming up mucus in the streets is quite normal for them. They do it so often they can give any premier league footballer a run for his money. It's really just foul.

This one time I asked the receptionist at our hostel to write down the Chinese symbols for ibuprofen. She didn't know what this was so looked it up on her computer and then said,"ahh western medicine"! I found this hilarious but fortunately it wasn't too difficult to get from the pharmacy once I handed over the piece of paper with the symbols on it.

Another time we went to this street called Wanfujing street which has big shopping malls and all the brand names so it really could be any shopping street in the world. However, there was a narrow alleyway going off this street decorated with Chinese lanterns and dragons that made it look like a stereotypical chinatown entrance. Walking down this street was really quite bizarre and there were stalls selling odd foods like scorpions on a stick (still wriggling about) and starfish along with food I really couldn't recognise let along tell you if it was sweet or savoury. I honestly felt like I was in another world!

We couldn't leave Beijing (formally called Peking) without trying Peking duck from the city that invented it. This proved to be more difficult than we expected. We asked our hostel for a recommendation which we wrote down on a piece of paper but even with this written in Chinese it took us hours to find it. Whoever we stopped to ask directions from could understand the paper but we could only understand which direction they were pointing in. This meant having to keep asking people for directions every few metres! When we eventually found the place it was absurdly expensive (as most Peking duck places are we came to realise) and didn't bother eating there. By our final night in Beijing I had managed to find somewhere that was somewhat reasonably priced to go have have Peking duck. Again it took so long to find the place but we made it just before closing time and had Peking duck like I've never tasted before. Interestingly they serve it with sugar here to dip the duck into. It is really tasty but also very greasy because it's mainly skin so it's not something you want to eat too much of. Still, I'm glad we tried it.

I have to apologise that we have gotten so far behind in our blogs (totally blaming Bryan for taking so long over Sapa). It's unfortunate that just as we're leaving China we start writing up the blogs but it has been chaotic trying to organise things. As you can imagine it takes five times as long to do anything in China mainly because of oversubscribed transport links and obviously the language barrier. Hopefully we'll catch up soon.