Beijing

LW - A late night arrival and with transfers taking us to the Novotel Beijing we arrived in bed at about 1am....
5:45am we were up again to get ready for our big day ahead - whirlwind tour of Beijing!

After a delicious buffet breakfast with waffles to die for we were picked up by our private tour guide to head to the Great Wall. (We were meant to be in group of about 12 but it turned out just being davo and I!).

It was about a 1.5 hour drive to the Great Wall - arriving early we got to enjoy uninterrupted views of spectacular mountains and most importantly the wall.
Stretching about 6300km it really is mind blowing how it was build so so so many years ago without the assistance of machinery or modern technology. On average one person for every family in China assisted with the creation of the Great Wall which took over centuries to build.

The walk along the wall was amazing but to be honest it was the toboggan ride down that stole the show!!! So much fun!!!

You know your in Asia when u get haggled at every corner - to the extent at one stage I could not get away from this lady who had hold of my arm.... Points for trying and in the end I did end up buying a jewelry holder from here- how could u say no???

The next stop on the tour was to a local Chinese restaurant for some delicious authentic food!!! It was brilliant and showing our lack our culture davo used his 'tea cup' as a rice bowl.... Our tour guide thought it was hilarious!

With a full belly next stop we were in for a treat with a local reflexology foot massage and pedicure. I thought that our reflexologists (is that a word? Aka men that were doing the massage) were on a mission to see how much physical pain they could inflict on us within the hour.... Omg the pain!!!! After it was done we did feel good and davo thought it cured his cold!

They really don't do things in halves in China - pasting through a 6 lane each way highway (12 across) and visiting some amazing traditional castles where the emperor had 1000 mistresses, 800 servants and one emperor was as young as 3 years old! What a life!
Their culture is so interesting and so different to what we are use to. A clear example of this is the communist regime and still how much higher in society that men are considered. Most people would direct all conversation to davo and the only question I would get was when will I have having child!!!!

We also visited the square tiam or something like that and we climbed to the top of another thing (lol can't remember the name) and we got 360* views of the city which was brilliant!!

Taxi, bus and train (all costing about $0.50!) and we were off to a circus show! This was one of the most fantastic shows that I have ever seen - 5 motor bikes in the big circle thing, girls doing ballet on mens shoulders, crazy flexible girls putting their bodies in positions that they should never be in, people jumping through hoops and a million other weird and wonderful things!

We just could not leave Beijing (previously known as Peking) without devouring some delicious Peking duck for the first time! The restaurant we were recommended by our tour guide was one of the best - with 29 tables to be seated before us; we packed into a waiting room and tried to interpretate Mandarin to see if our table had been called. It was worth the wait!

Last stop for the night was the night markets where we saw all those crazy things you see on movies.... Snake, sheep penis, scorpions, star fish, sea horses and yes.... DOG was up for grabs in kebab form!!!

In a summary China was brilliant! What a whirlwind visit - packing in as much as possible into our 24 hours! Everything is generally cheap, they have crazy drivers, the crowds are beyond anything ive seen and you could pick davo and I a mile away with our blonde hair amongst a sea of jet black!!!!

P.s. if your ever looking for a Chinese tour guide... Ask us about Kevin - he was a legend!!!