Beijing

The Great Wall of China.
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We arrived in Beijing around 6.40am. The train journey was comfortable and we both slept a reasonable amount. We got a taxi to our hostel as Beijing is so vast and we didn't have a clear map so we thought it was probably easier. After checking in to our hostel and buying a map we headed out to explore the east part of the city which was where our hostel was located. We walked down various streets including a shopping street along which we were approached by 3 sets of chinese people claiming to be students who wanted us to see their caligraphy work in a nearby gallery. We'd read in our guide book that this was a hoax and once you entered the gallery you were charged for various things. We felt a bit rude as the people were very nice if they were genuine however everything about the conversations were so like the guide book stated that we felt it best just to move on and try not to talk to them. After a bit of exploring we stopped at a Beijing Duck restaurant to try the famous crispy duck pancakes in their home town. They were very nice but we didn't feel they were that much different to ones at home which was a bit of a surprise as you'd expect them to be a lot better.

The Great Wall of China.
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On the second day we went on a tour to the Great Wall of China. The tour bus dropped us off at Jinshanling and we walked a 10 km stretch of the walk to Simatai. We walked it with a Swedish guy called Michael who we had got chatting to on the coach. The walk in places was pretty tough as some of the wall was obviously very run down and steep. Along the way we were regularly accompanied by Chinese women who would walk with us some way and then try to sell us books or postcards. Once they realised we weren't interested they would stop and wait for some more tourists to come along. We ended up buying a couple of "I climbed the great wall" t-shirts from a chinese woman who walked with us for the last stretch of the wall. She was a very nice woman and told us various interesting facts about the wall along the way. We thought an extra t-shirt wouldn't go amiss on the train in siberia so thought we'd get them as they were very cheap. The views from the great wall were amazing and the wall itself really is spectacular. You can see it stretching out over the mountains for as far as the eye can see and the terrain is pretty tough so the fact that it was built in the first place, let alone withstood many year of weathering etc, is quite impressive. After a long walk we had some food at a restaurant and caught the coach back to Beijing. The coach ride was 3 hours each way so in all a very long day.

Tiananmen Gate.
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The next day we called our tour operator for the trans-mongolian railway and went to pick up our tickets for our Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. This took most of the morning but was important to get sorted. In the afternoon we went to Yong He Gong Lamasery which was a monastery for Tibetan Monks. The architecture was really impressive and there were masses of Buddha statues including one which was over 18 metres high. It was very much a touristy place with loads of tour groups around however monks still live there and sit in each hall with the buddhas although we saw a couple over the course of the afternoon sneakily sending text messages when they thought no one was looking, not sure if buddist monks are meant to have mobile phones!

Forbidden City.
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On our final day we were pretty busy, we got up bright and early to go to the Forbidden City before the masses of tour groups arrived. This was a huge place we so many halls and buildings. We spent most of the morning here before going across to Tian'anmen Square when Chairman Maos body is embalmed and available to be viewed although we didn't really feel like seeing his "pickled corpse" (the guide books description, not ours!). We then walked to Temple of Heaven which was the area where the Emperor went to pray to heaven for good crops etc. We both thought this was really good, probably better than the forbidden city. There were various halls used for prayer and also the round altar,supposedly the centre of the Universe where the Emperor stood to worship heaven.

Temple of Heaven.
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We've really enjoyed China and Beijing, in particular The Great Wall. Tomorrow we are heading off on the Trans-Mongolian Railway to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia which is very exciting although does mean a pretty early start as we have to be at the station around 6.30am.

H.