Beijing

We arrived in Beijing today. What an amazing airport.

I don't think I've ever felt so tired! We're tired because we should be asleep if we were at home, but in China it's only 9:30AM. We all crashed out in our hotel room before going out to some hutongs. Brrr,  it was freezing!!! 

Lots of people clear their throats and spit in the street! The people however are so kind and gentle.We found a nice local restaurant nearby. We looked at the menu and saw they were selling bull frog and duck with blood curd! eew! Although that was horrible I had a great meal which was sweet and sour pork with straw hat bread. Straw hat bread is a bit like pastry and straw hats! We ordered loads of food, some drinks and it only came to £20!

Today we took a bus to Tian amen square. It was a bit like trafalgar square but, instead of the statues, there was a HUGE flagpole with the Chinese flag on top, with very glum guards around it. 

Everyone wanted to take a picture of us, or with us. Afterwards, we went to the Silk market where everyone was bargaining with us. One woman tried to hold me and my sister hostage in a shop! The only reason she was doing that was because she wanted us to buy her scarves!! Although she was doing her job, I wouldn't buy anything from her because of the experience she gave us.

We went to the toilets there. They were holes in the ground and had no doors! There was no way I was going to the toilet there! Although we didn't get much out of the silk market, we definitely learnt a lot from it. We learnt that people will do anything to get you to buy their goods. For example, a woman started off at £80 for two basic scarves, and when we left she lowered the price of the scarves right down to £10. They do that because when you buy their products you feel you've got a deal, but actually you haven't.

Today we went on a tour. Firstly, we went to a jade factory. The way they made the ornaments was fascinating but they were charging too much for very simple things. 

Then our tour guide took us to a part of the great wall of China that she called Badaling but she was wrong because my dad researched it before we went there and Badaling was much nicer!! 

We got a spectacular view from the top and we saw an eagle!! It had a wingspan of over two metres and was riding up on thermals.

Then we went to a small restaurant where they where serving salad bowls of soup, toffee covered sweet potato and sugar coated pumpkin. The soup looked disgusting because it was gloopy!  

Afterwards, we went to the ming tombs. It was spooky because our tour guide was talking about ghosts when it was dark! 

Then we went to see the 2008 Olympic village and saw the birds nest stadium. It was really cool!

Today we're leaving Beijing. But before we went to the airport we went to see the Forbidden city. Although it was freezing, it was amazing the way they carved the roofs out on the tombs. 

We finished the walk with a nice warm cup of hot chocolate. I couldn't believe we had already finished the first leg of our trip! 

At midnight we arrived at a very posh hotel in Xi'an called Grand solux.