Lush, Green, Smoggy Beijing

Temple in the Forbidden City
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Arrived in Beijing, booked a hotel in the airport with English speakers, and got a taxi quickly and cheaply without any hassle. Easy! Went straight to bed for a few hours, knackered! We went out for a meal on the first night and had a massive bowl of pork noodles, including a 630ml bottle of Tsingtao beer, for 22RNB (Yuan). That`s 70p each, and it was nice! Bit of trouble ordering it though, we were just stood like deaf and dumb people in the local restaurant pointing to our mouths looking pretty stupid. We were rescued by a guy that could speak a little English. I'm still not sure we got we asked for but it was dam nice anyway! The hotel only cost us about 9 Pounds each and that was pretty nice too. We managed to avoid all the tourist traps and ate locally, purely by mistake as we just wandered around on the first night without any real plan. Turned out ok for us though, we got into the haggling routine straight away and got some bargain food and beer!

Typical facade - Forbidden City
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Beijing is a really nice place if the smog doesn`t block out the Sun! The moon is brown and we never saw a star! That aside, it's beautiful to look at, some of the old arcitechture is amazing. The whole place is really green with blooming flowers absolutley everywhere. Must have got lucky with it being spring. There's loads to see and do, we were dead busy everyday and we didn't even get to see the Summer Palace!

There's loads to see and do, we were dead busy everyday and we didn't even get to see the Summer Palace!