City of a million cockroaches

MMM Chickens Feet individually wrapped
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I got on the plane full of joy and anticipation with the spirit of adventure that this trip deserved or half asleep with a scab the size of belgium on my bruised and cracked lips as my new now toothless socket became infected and i whipped open the penicilin tablets.

We flew to Copenhagen without incident with myself answering ruths questions with a grunt out the side of my mouth.  The 9 or so hours in Copenhagen airport were largely spent playing boardgames with Guess Who being my new "most hated".  What a cr*p game that is! Has he got a beard ...silence.......Yes...cue faces on the board going down.......silence....does she wear glasses?....silence.....no...fking hell i can feel each of the seconds of my life drift away with that game.  Doesn't help at all that ruth beat me 3-0.  Then it was scrabble...it was like a victorian childhood for 9 hours.  We then got the penny farthing out and rode round the airport.

How now reddish-brown Mao
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At this point i was practically begging for the plane to arrive and when it did we all boarded as did a plane load of Danish college girls, about 20 off them, all stunners.  Of course i am a happily coupled up man but still that was nice wasn't it? Scandinavian airlines didn't put it on the brouchure so it was an unexpected bonus.  I got my seat, sat down, got myself comfortable and a 19 year old super model walked past.  I did my usual suave smile, this time with two days worth of beard growth and immediately shouted "agghh" out of the right side of my mouth as my scab split open on the left and sprayed blood everywhere.  Not quite the james bond impression i had envisaged.

Forbidden City
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The flight got on the way with the air steward not making much of an effort with me and ruth at all, throwing our food on the table, practically throwing our bread rolls at the back of our heads and making "wan*er" signs at me when he went past.  Well the last bit was a lie but practically.  Don't know what we did to offend this guy but he was really odd with us all flight.  Probably because i looked like a tramp.

Got to Beijing with about 3/4 hours sleep in the 24 hours..utterly shattered as we left the plane.  Took us forever to get seen by immigration as we had to queue for a while.  When we got out we were immediately accosted by people shouting "taxi" at us from half a yard away.  "No" i kept saying, Taxi" said another, "No thanks, bus" i replied.  "Ah bus, maybe taxi later" the driver said....."yeah maybe i will take the bus to my hotel after a 24 hour journey, put my bags down then get a bus back to you and we can go out for the night?, somewhere special, just the two of us".

Summer Palace - Kunming Lake
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Maybe not, we walked for about 50 metres, still getting "Taxi"d. and found the bus stop.  6 buses, line 3 had our stop on, at least we thought it was our stop.  We paid a random amount of yuan to a random person that may or may not have worked for somewhere remotely related to busses and headed towards a mass of busses with 2 pieces of paper written in chinese. Presumably with "these people are stupid, they have just given me money, i am the road sweeper".

When we got to the bus, the 3 chinese people at it began talking to me in mandarin, i replied back to them in english.  Strangely enough this was not a recipe for success.  So the lonely planet book came out, got bless you lonely planet, with the words "train station" on it.  I grunted at the page and pointed at the words in the book, after 2 minutes the driver stopped looking at my huge cornflake-like scab on my mouth and looked at the book and agreed that it did indeed say train station.  Happy with this news i got on the packed bus with the heating set to max and we went on our merry way not knowing which stop or where our hotel was exactly when we got off.

Marble boat - Summer Palace
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After everyone got off we realised it was the last stop and got off and was immediately attacked by people doing scooby doo impressions.  "wooyouu,ruu scooby doobydoo".  Blank looks got rid of them but then mr perfect english came out of the woodwork.  "What hotel are you going to ?" ruth was looking blank, as was i, we were both knackered at this point and wanted a bed.  The guy said he could take us to our hotel for 50 yuan and of course we said yes.  I'm sorry, i know i am in the wrong and you all know better than me.  The bus for miles only cost 10 yuan  so why we agreed on 50 i don't know.  Actually i do it is because i said "cheaper" and the guy just shrugged and started speaking in chinese.  I repeated "cheaper" and the guy looked at me as if i had tentacles coming out of my nose, he was backing off shaking his head, maybe he had seen the scab.  Anyway we agreed to go on his high-powered vehicle which turned out to be a bike with the smallest seat ever.  We knew the hotel was near but where? The guy knew and he was adamant it was "500 miles away" or something ridiculous.

So the bicycle took a right right down an alley where it looked certain we were going to get robbed, everyone was staring at us.  Another right, we weren't just getting robbed we were both getting bum raped in about 30 seconds. Another right, hey this is strange it is almost as if we were going in a circle, dodgy people everywhere.  At this point we knew we were getting ripped of but didn't care. The guy who couldn't fathom the word "cheaper" started to speak his pidgeon english "here we go folks, that wasn't a bad trip was it, obviously those people we passed were from very low income familes and are having quite rough times at the moment, anyway that will be 50 yuan".  I said "cheaper?" and the guy shrugged, not the foggiest on what i said.  So we gave him 50 yuan then he said "each", i just started to speak, ever the diplomant, "tell him can fu....", "No" ruth said before me and we headed off...  yeah, no was probably the better phrase there especially wehere we were.

We then spent 20 minutes going up and down streets getting stared at, trying to find our hotel.  It took us an age.  We finally got our key and went in.  The room is on the fourth floor and on the end of a corridor that looks like one from the "Overlook Hotel" in The Shining, the one where the two kids come out while the little boy is riding round on his bike.  That wasn't the scary part though, the scary part was when we had settled in our little box room with single beds and i was standing up talking to ruth who was sitting on her bed when a thing the size of a bat fell out of the air conditoning unit above ruth's bed and flew behind ruth's head onto the floor.  Obviously i did the manly thing and screamed "what the fu** is that?" as ruth started screaming "what, what?"..."The giant fu**ing cat that just flew behind you and nearly ate your head".  Ruth immediately and with good reason went to the bathroom for a shower where i was left alone with the flying leopard with 8 foot fangs.  It was a cockroach of course, i couldn't expect the hotel to send an employee to clean the air conditioning unit but jeez it was a mother.

It stomped over to where the bags are and started playing cards or something behind my bag as i stood on the bed in the nude biting my nails like the hero i am.  I decided i needed to pull myself together so started throwing things at hand at it.  It scurried out into the open and i hit it with a shoe.  'get in there you bas*ard, come in my room and terrorise me and my girlfriend'.  It was feigning injury though and soon leapt up and started to do press-ups to show it was indestructable.  I threw my last remaining shoe at it and it limboed under the door and into the scary corridor.  We both slept in the one bed last night, with the light on, yes that is how brave we are.

We slept for 12 hours or so and got up late, first we went to the supermarket where the individually wrapped chickens feet looked appetising as did the grilled piglets, which were along side lots more mystery meat.

We bought the worst and driest bananas i have ever ate and headed off to the "Temple of heaven". Think that was what it was called, was very picturesque park with lots of temples for things like sacrificing cows and making music, maybe both at the same time, it was nice though.  After a few hours there it was off to tiananmen square which was like a big square really with lots of communisty things to do, the big Mr Mao popping his head out on a big picture, i was admiring it when a young lad with no hands and a burnt face came up to me and started asking for money, wasn't expecting that to be honest, not often that you would i imagine but couldn't say no..poor sod.

Then off to beihai park which is a lovely park set in flowery grounds with a huge lake in the centre of it where people get in boats and paddle around.  I tried to take a picture of a pagoda in the middle of a lake just opposite the park but was told in no uncertain terms by a soldier that he was going to ram a bayonet somewhere not very pleasant if i took a picture.  There was a government building behind me and the guard assumed i had some kind of u-bend in my lens.

Yesterday we went to a chinese resaurant next to the hostel where we were told that they would only serve us pizza even though chinse people were eating chinese food, baffling but we went for it so pizza the fist night.  So tonight we went for the authentic chinese experience in Asia Star.  Turned out to be Indian/Malay food with 300 pages in 2 menus with unpronouncable words cooked any way you want.  I got the vegatable soup which was like pouring parafin on my tongue and lighting a match. The curry which arrived at the same time with a mystery dish we never ordered was like take some coal out of a roaring fire and putting it in your mouth.  Had pear juice and a banana lassi with the meal which was nice though.

Big day tomorrow, summer palace and the forbidden city, i will be happy once i have seen these, ruth wants to go to the zoo which i am not to keen on but she has only asked to see one thing so can't be rude...'oh look there's a zebra......but in china" still may have some chinese things in there..i know thay have pandas so that would be nice.

The day after is great wall tour in mutianyu which is supposed to be picturesque, then train to xian in the evening, 1 night there then fly to shanghai.  Will hope to update this blog with photos once i have got enough to stick on a cd.

Hope everyone is fine...got to go back to cockroach city in a mo..not looking forward to it....

oh yeah, another thing there are 4 toilets in the blokes bathroom, 2 are western and 2 are a hole in a ground, fair enough each to his own but i went for a wee twice now and twice the hole in the ground door has been open while some chinese bloke has been squat like he is riding a motorbike smiling up at me, giving me the time of day....that is not, not, not coool, i value you customs n all but dude no, that is firmly in the column marked "wrong"...also everyone spits on the floor at your feet, again please reconsider

Paul