Woke up at 8am and had a quick breakfast as we were meeting Peter and Jason at the entrance to the Forbidden City so we could all go together. Jason text en-route to say he had overslept
and would meet us in there. We met Peter about 15 minutes late as we had underestimated how big everywhere was. We walked through Chinamen square on our way to meet Peter so did get a little slowed down taking photo’s on the way just in case we don’t get chance to come back and do it properly.
We got there and paid the entrance fee which was 40 yen (4quid). You get hassled a bit on the way in by people wanting to offer you a tour guide inside but we are used to them now. I think as soon as they see Western faces they think….”ahhh money!” lol. There aren’t that many western people here at the moment with it being winter it’s probably not as popular. You also get a lot of scams when you are wandering around. We had heard about one of them from the two girls at our hotel in Moscow and Peter told us he fell for the same thing yesterday. A couple of people will come up to you who speak quite good English and make conversation saying they are studying English and want to chat with you to try and improve their language. They then say “can we go for a coffee and chat somewhere”. They take you to a coffee shop or a traditional teashop where you try different teas with them while you are chatting and then the bill comes, as is a fortune. Peter got stung for £50 but the girl ended up paying £200. I don’t think they would catch Phil with it lol.
Anyway I digress. We walked down the length of the Forbidden city and it took us 2 hours!!! We then had to go back to get out (granted we didn’t need to stop so much for pictures). The place was HUGE and you enter large courtyards with big red building all round with fancy roofs and various gods and things inside. As you go through one of the temples you come out into another court that looks quite similar to the last one and so on. It was kind of on a scale of Alton Towers but in a huge square rather than all spread our al over the place. There are variations and different walls and things inside. We got LOADS of photos and kept trying to be arty and capture something a bit different that other people might not necessarily take photos of.
After we finished the Forbidden City we head to make a pit stop at our hotel room as both our batteries were flat. Peter said he would tag along and we would all get a bite for lunch wile our batteries charged. Decided to try the small stall in the street next to our hotel as we had seen a lot of people there lots of times. We walked up and it looked like large pastry type things, some of which looked sweet. We ordered 3 of everything (the 3 types he had out) as we didn’t really know what would be nice then his mate brought another type out fresh from the oven so we had 3 of those too. So we had 16 party things in total and it came to 16 yen (£1.60) you would pay that at home for 1. Happy days ! We ate them at the hotel and discovered that the fresh hot ones were filled with spring onion garlic and egg, and all the others were sweet (very sweet), I got a cavity just looking at mine.
After lunch we then headed over to the Temple of Heaven. This was another large area but a lot more variety photo wise. There was an area called the longest corridor which was a corridor under shelter than just had hundreds of people sat along the small outer walls playing cards and then all along the corridor was various groups of people doing different impromptu things. There was a Chinese choir singing stuff, some sixtys throwback old
people dancing to really clubby music (which just looked wrong lol), there was people playing instruments juggling etc. As we were walking down Phil was doing a bit of filming and I swear this woman was just sat on the wall minding her own business. She took one look at the camera and just burst into song! Her husband was looking at her like she was barmy. Then she whipped out two red fans from her bag and started waving them about. The things people do to get the limelight LOL (and I thought me and Phil were bad). We spend another couple of hours in here then as the sun started going down we decided to head over to the Olympic football stadium.
Forgot to mention yesterday I bought some trainers from the shop round the corner for £5 cos my boots (well Andrews boots when everyone has their own) are rubbing a bit on the back on my ankles (cos I’m not used to boots I think), Anyway after a full day walking round in them my feet were killing me. I’m sure they are a size too small but for a fiver you have to be prepared to limp don’t you lol. On the way out I bought a really nice silk scroll thing with all Chinese writing on it as I thought I could stick ot in the dining room and then use that wall for all my photos etc (like you want to know my décor plans).
It took us ages to get to the Olympic Stadium as some giddy Chinese woman told us the wrong stop to get off at on the tube. By the time we got there it had gone dark, but this turned out to be a good thing as everything around the stadium area had lit up so looked really impressive. After we had overdosed on photo’s we made our way back on the tube and arranged to meet Peter in the morning at our hotel for the great wall of china visit.
When we got to our hotel the plan was to just grab some fast food but I needed to get some nail clippers first so went down the side street near us where I got my trainers as Phil had seen some in the shop. Bought some and thought I might as well get another pair of trainers while I was there (this time I will get a 43 not 42,even though Im meant to be 42). Bought some funky metallic kinda ones and bartered her down to £6.50 (your couldn’t get a kick up the bum with an open toe sandal for that at home never mind a pair of trainers).
Across the little alley from the trainer stall was a little scruffy supermarket with a little window and a woman cooking stuff in a tiny make shift stove thing. We decided to give it a go there as we had been disappointed with the touristy place yesterday. We waited while she cooked a few for other people to see what the score was. When it was out turn the woman pointed us to the area in the store where there was baskets of fresh things, herds, meat, dried noodles etc. She handed us plastic basket to put out stuff in that we wanted (and pointed to few things she kinda recommended as she spoke no English). We both got a noodle-based dish each, with all kinds of stuff in that we couldn’t put a name to. Mine had quail eggs in it, shitake mushrooms, seafood parcels, coriander, shrimp things etc and she added curry, spices etc. We got a large bottle of beer between us and then were shown to this nursery size table and chairs where we could drink while she cooked it. The whole shop was no bigger than the size of a bedroom at home and there were about 4 small tables in there and a shop etc. The only people in there were locals and two woman on the next table seemed fascinated that we had gone in the place as they mustn’t get tourist in there.
While we waited for our food we tried to make some kind of conversation to the two woman but it wasn’t easy. A lady came round with a bowl of pasta type things like large ravioli and offered us one each. We took one and ate them and they were pretty much like a large ravioli. When the food came it was really nice and had lots of dried chillies in, so was very hot but tasty.
When we went to pay she got her calculator out to show us the price and tapped in 15 yen (£1.50). I thought she was adding up the stuff as the beer would probably be about that. Then she pointed to the two of us as if to say together. So I said yes and she then showed us the 15 yen again. So it cost us 75p each for a meal and a few glassed of beer. GET IN !! I think Phil will be moving out here now lol.
We are going to eat there again as at least we know its nice and can pick our own stuff and it adds to the whole experience.
Straight after dinner went round the corner to our hotel. Made a few calls on Skype and uploaded pics and then hit the sack as up early tomorrow. Will have to try and catch up on the pics when we are on a flight or something.
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