China - Beijing

Nihao, we are now in Beijing. On our 1st day we arrived we just slept at the youth hostel (nice and cheap) we are staying and later on that night we went and had some proper peking duck, which was fantastic. The next day we went to see the Great Wall of China at Badaling and to the Ming Tombs where 13 of the 16 emperors of China are buried. On route in between the 2 places we went to a chinese medical research centre, which we had read in the book is a scam that tours take you to where you get diagnosed things and you have to pay for expensive medicine. It was all a bit of a waste of time more than anything, we got there and it was up to you whether you let the chinese doctor examine you. Sam tried it out, the examination consisted of the doctor putting 3 fingers on each wrist where your pulse is. Each finger apparently could tell how an organ was functioning. Apparently they can tell whether you are having too much alcohol by one finger being able to see how your liver is doing. This was the case with sam, the doctor advised him to dramatically decrease his alcohol intake as if he were an alchoholic. So predictably no medicine was bought for this supposed liver mistreatment lol. Aside from that the Great Wall was good, but it was very misty and cold so we couldnt see it winding all up and over the hills.

The Day after we went to see Tiannamen Square and the Forbidden City. Tiannamen square was absolutely huge, we strolled through that for 20 mins, where Sam and Jack bought Chairman Mao waving comical watches. Then we entered the Forbidden city through the gate you see with a big picture of Mao above the enterance. We hired a guide and he took us around there for a few hours anf then we went to a local park to kill sometime before going into central Beijing to have something to eat from the street stalls where Dave ate a grasshopper kebab!

The following day we got a 6 hour train to Datong, where 1/3 of China's coal is produced so parts of the city are a little polluted, but also where the Yungang caves and the Hanging Monastary are.