Ni hao from Beijing!!

Last time you heard from us we were still in Shanghai...We have now made our way up through Nanjing and to Beijing and will leave for Xi'an on Monday night.

Anyways, better start from the beginning (I will try to make this brief and we promise to put a lot of photos so you dont get bored with my monologue!)

We left Shanghai on thursday morning to Nanjing - I wanted to see the city as there is quite a lot of history to it but unfortunately when we got there we were told that the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre was closed for 13 months for renovation :( So we visited the city as best we could - we saw the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Museum and the Fuzi Temple where we tried the Teahouse where they serve you tea as it should be through a whole complicated process and after made our way upwards towards the station through a huge shopping district (there are many of those in every city here) - I wanted to see more but transportation was hard to come by as metro stations are very far apart and it was impossible to get a taxi during rushhour! Let's just say our feet will be happy to go home hehe

We left Nanjing towards Beijing with a night train (12 hours) - we figure we're going to spend most of our money on transportation while here, as comfort doesnt come cheap! - we took the soft-sleeper trains which means you have 4 beds to a compartment (for Xi'an there were no more 4 bed compartments available so we will be forced to take the 2 bed for double the price, ouch!) Anyways, quite comfortable transportation and luxurious as well - you sleep the entire way and are woken up with breakfast (that is if you dont have a China man snoring loudly next to you - that didnt really help!)

After getting accomodation and catching up on some needed sleep we made our way to Tiannanmen Square (biggest square in the world for those who dont know). However we were sideswept on the way there by a rickshaw man that wanted to take us around one of the many "ghettto" neighbourhoods of China - dont worry mum, they almost dont pedal anymore as they have electric bikes now - he then took us to a huge Beijing Roast duck restaurant (hey, when in Rome...) We spent quite a lot of money in this restaurant but the duck was great! We were the only tourists there (it was a 6 floor restaurant, each floor held 200 people so you do the math - like I said earlier - HUGE!)

Tiananmen - also HUGE and extremely crowded with Chinese tourists. By the time Jo took all the photos he wanted from the square it was already too late to do the Forbidden City so we just went into one of their many gardens to enjoy their tranquility :) Afterwards, we figured it was best to buy the tickets for Xi'an so we made our way to their -again- HUGE Beijing West Train Station where after much waiting in between impatient Chinese (who by the way are not very good at staying in line or not cutting) we were able to get our very expensive tickets to Xi'an.

Yesterday, we visited the Forbidden City (3 hours inside and we could have done more if we had gone to see all the exhibitions but we only saw the main halls and the clock exhibition). Then we took another rickshaw ride around yet another neighbourhood (this one was quite interesting because it was already around during the Ming and Qing dynasty and it was where the people who worked inside the Forbidden City during the day came to sleep at night) - we also "supposedly" passed Deng Xiaoping's house (before he was president). At night we visited the markets (our hotel is on the same street as one of them so we didnt have much to walk :) The trouble with China is that you want to buy everything because it is so cheap and completely different from back home but when you travel with backpacks you really have to be aware of your limitations! That night we also went to visit Tiananmen Square because Jo wanted to use his tripod for some night photos - good for me cause I got to interact with the people and practice my mandarin! I also got to fly a chinese kite (we ended up buying one of course!)

Today, we visited the Temple of Heaven Park - biggest architectural site to pray to Heaven. You have to hand it to the Chinese - they know how to enjoy their weekends - we arrived to a singing group and then made our way to a little hidden area where the older generation were practicing their instruments and singing opera but very relaxed and enjoying each others companies. A bit further along we ran into a game area where people where playing various games with each other - one was where you threw a fabric ring across to some one and the other person has to catch with their head - Jo was immediately invited to play :) We did also visit the temple of course, which was very nice (photos can speak for themselves) although I do remember that it was much nicer in 1999 when the sky was actually blue! When we were almost at the end Jo was yet again invited to play a type of tennis - but the rackets have a soft material and you are not actually supposed to hit the ball but let it fall gently on the racket and throw it to your partner - we ended up buying a set as well!

Afterwards we visited the Lama Temple - the biggest Buddhist temple in China outside of Tibet. Also very nice with a lot of halls and Buddha statues - it had one that was 80m tall and carved out of a single white sandalwood tree (it made it into the Guinness Book of Records) but again I thinkg the photos speak for themselves - I already bore you enough with the other details!

Tomorrow we are going to Badaling to visit the Great Wall of China - since we were forced to stay one more day we decided to keep this for last as it is worse to visit during the weekend! Then, hopefully if we have time (and since we are waking up at 5 to go to the Wall) we should still have time to visit the Summer Palace - our train isnt until 21:30 for Xi'an so we will see :)

Until then, Zaijian!!

Love
Jo and Fil