Beijing

Next day we went to Mutingyu which is a rebuilt part of the great wall. It's not the most famous part of the Great Wall but it's up there and there are less tourists. We got a gondola up and traveled from tower 6 to 20. It was quite the walk but the structure was very impressive and you got to see a lot of what they did to rebuild it. It must have been a massive undertaking as the non rebuilt bits look pretty destroyed. The only bad thing was the weather which was completely smoggy, foggy or misty so you couldn't see that far away. I feel it would make a big difference if you went on a nice clear day because you are so high up. We met a Dutch girl from our group and walked a lot of the way with her. She continued on after tower 20 but we headed back because we wanted to get the toboggan down. The toboggan is just a big metal chute which you go down on plastic seats with a brake. It was great fun though halfway down we got caught up in a bit of a traffic jam. It was a good way to get down from the wall. We then headed to a restaurant with six other members of the group and shared a bunch of Chinese dishes. They were really tasty but most were the usual dishes from Chinese at home like sweet and sour and black bean sauce. We headed back exhausted and chilled out for the rest of the night.

Next day we got up really early and headed to the Forbidden City. The place seems packed the whole time but we were warned after 12 it's unbearable. We were expecting to pay in from the start so we bought tickets which were quite cheap at the first ticket desk and then continued on expecting to come across a barrier. When we didn't find one we found out the ticket was for thee gate house. As we had already bought it we decided we might as we head back and go up into it. You actually get a good view from the gatehouse of Tienanmen square and there were a few interesting bits and pieces which you couldn't take pictures of. We saw a model of what we thought was the forbidden city but it never seemed to match up with what we saw in the city correctly. Much later we found the main section of the city which is cordoned off as a museum. We headed in there and there was already an impossible throng of people. I'm not much for crowds so I got sick of this early on but then Brian noticed no one was off to the sides but it would be worth checking to see if you could go through the side gates. It turns out you can so I would completely recommend walking up the sides of the forbidden city. At some points we were the only people on the path and you could hear birds chirping. All the tours go up the centre along with most people. You can see everything find from the sides and there are stairs up to the palaces from all directions. The palaces were beautiful but there were loads of them with a similar design. The gardens were amazing. For some reason we got distracted by talking about how you would convert a conservatory into a living space for semi aquatic turtles while wandering in there. They had really unusual rock features and square pools with bridges. I think squares are meant to represent earth and circles heaven so a lot of pools are square. We wandered in and our of a lot of building but even still we were finished early enough. The we decided to head to the silk markets. I hated them to be honest. One lady wouldn't let me leave the shop cause she was haggling with Brian and trying to get him to buy something. Another lady kept trying to sell me stuff I had just glanced at that was really expensive. They were the worst people from any market we have been to in any country. I would never go to a market like that in China again. Suffice to say I didn't buy a lot of souvenirs in China, except some authentic spices in the supermarket for Eoin and a few trinkets at the start. Going back to the hostel helped me recover because it's was a really chilled out place. That night we got to make our own dumplings. Almost everyone helped (it seems that on regular occasions some Americans don't help out with making the dumplings but still eat them at the end, according to guys who have been staying at the hostel weeks) rolling the dough or filling the little pies. Then they were taken away to be cooked and we ate loads of the them. In the mean time we had start a game of Jungle Speed where you have grab a squishy stick in the middle of table whenever the pattern on your cards matches someone else's. It was a really good game and we played it most of the night. Next day we moved to a hotel in Beijing (with a lot of getting lost) and so began the Trans-Mongolian final leg of our trip. I've been really looking to the relaxing train journey through Asia. Most of the day was spent buying supplies for the trip. Noodles, biscuits and crisps being the main portion and then buying ourselves dinner. We were that hungry so we grabbed food in the bakery. I got what I thought was a garlic bread but turned out to be a garlic bread filled with Peking duck (it was actually really nice). Brian got some things like cold slices of pizza which he said were good but a little too greasy.