Day 26

Saturday began with an early start, as we got a bus to the Summer Palace with our friends Nick and Paul. Paul is from Singapore, earning him the hilarious nickname SingaPaul, and has spent a few months in Beijing so acted as our tour guide. He also prevented us from getting ripped off, which was a refreshing change. The highlight of the Palace tour was hiring a little boat for an hour and going out on the lake to escape the hoards of tourists. It was another beautiful day too, with clear blue skies, which meant that we got some great shots of the palace from the boat.

On the way back from the palace, we stopped off at a technology market to see if I could pick up a replacement charger for my laptop as mine had broken in Xi'an. A good hour of searching, begging and bribe-offering left me no better off. The Chinese don't seem able to think outside the box, or even take anything out of it for that matter. The employees at the computer stores seemed completely baffled by the notion that I just wanted to buy a charger and kept offering me a "very cheap price" for a laptop with a charger, despite me holding my laptop and demonstrating the problem.

After wasting enough of everyone's time, I made my apologies and we headed over to the Olympic park to see the Bird's Nest stadium and Water Cube. It was absolutely packed with locals, so we took a few photos and had a look around the rest of the park before getting back on the subway. We left Nick and Paul as they made their way back to the hostel, while Daley and I carried on to the Yong'anli technology market as I was determined not to be defeated in my hunt for a charger. I think you can probably guess the outcome of that mini adventure.

On the way back to our hostel we dropped in on the Silk Road market once more so that I could get my jeans repaired. I ended up leaving with another pair of jeans and a pair of 'Converse' trainers, while Daley flirted with the sales girls.

We arrived back at the hostel an hour later than we had promised to find that Nick and Paul had been joined by Jenny, who had arrived that evening, and the five of us went back in to town for some traditional Peking duck. Unfortunately Daley and I had kept everyone waiting so long that most of the restaurants were closing, but we did manage to find one place that would serve us. It wasn't Peking duck, in fact I have no idea what it was, but it was very tasty. Well, it was alright. I don't care much for tofu though.

At around eleven-thirty we left the restaurant and got taxis to a night club called Mix, recommended by Paul. The first room we came to was a Hip Hop/R'n'B room, which was like a waist-high recreation of a scene from 8 Mile, and as usual, we were the only Westerners in there, but the music didn't stop and no tumble-weeds blew across when we walked in so it looked like we weren't going to be a hindrance. In keeping with China's 'no fun' policy however, the drinks were ludicrously expensive, even for folk like me, used to 'Lahndan prices' so for us budget-conscious travellers it was looking like an early night...