Tomorrow I leave Beijing for Xian, hopefully. Its a bad day tomorrow because Hannah is going home too but thankfully it's not as long a stretch before we see each other again. It's been amazingly different here and we managed to do most of the main tourist stuff.

The first day we went to the forbidden city, which I have to say was a bit underwhelming. We went to the temple of heaven park the next day, the pearl market and tianmen square. Day 3 we went to the silk market and night market. Day 4 was time for happy valley theme park (and we went to see a acrobatic show at night) and today which was our last day we went to the mutiyina (or something like that) section of the great wall and the Ming tombs. I'm writing this on the coach going to a silk factory on the way back to Beijing, with Hannah having one of her several naps.

The great wall was amazing. It's one of the only places I've been to so far that looks like the pictures in guide books.

The silk market is the scariest shopping market I've been to. Me and Hannah were both physically assaulted to go over to peoples stalls. They grab your arm and you have to pull yourself away. Even saw one lady follow a couple around the market trying to sell stuff. And another shout abuse at someone because they couldn't agree on a price.

The food is really good and extremely cheap. If you ever get the chance to try donkey dumplings they are actually pretty tasty.

Beijing is loud, smelly, dirty, full of rude people but more importantly very cheap (although they charge a disproportionate amount of money for tourist sites) and different from any other city I've been to so far. Wouldn't go back though :)