By Z Lloyd-Denman
We spent a week in Beijing, our longest stop on our trip so far. We visited temples, tourist sites including the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, eating snakes and scorpions and the famous Peking duck, survived riding bikes, rickshaws and squashing on buses with busy commuters. The blog entries are split up as we have so many photos!
Our first hostel had a Moon party, to celebrate the Moon festival, the 10th moon of the year (I think). So we went to the free BBQ, ate vast quantities of meat kebabs, not quite sure what meat it actually was but it tasted good and Zoe drank her first bottle of beer as that was the only drink available! Chatting to other like minded travelers - all doing the same route around Asia, the time passed quickly and before we knew it, it was midnight!
The Forbidden City took us 5 hours to walk around with an audio guide, but even then, we only saw half of the city. It is a huge place, with really interesting history. There were crowds of people (as there seems to be everywhere we go!) around the entrance, not amused we still ventured inside. As we walked through the beginning park / garden area, the crowds depleted. The whole concept of the Forbidden City's history is quite amazing. Emperors, Princesses, a ranking of concubines, an heir required to follow the throne, bought trouble among the Emperor and his ladies. Horrid threats among the concubines, some even died because of their importance to the Emperor. The Forbidden City covers a huge area, an expanse of impressive, colorful buildings, ranked in order of importance, which can be noted by the number of dragons on its roof edges. This was one of the highlights of our Beijing visit.
The food market in Beijing was amusing!  A Street with loads of stalls all selling food, some kebabs, some noodles, a variety of seafood, various kinds of meat and many tourists having a good old look! Phil was brave, he ate a snake kebab and 3 scorpions too! Our sensible heads took us into a restaurant to satisfy our craving for more Peking duck though!
During our stay, we stayed in 2 youth hostels, one to the north of the city and the other more central. They were both in Hutong areas, which are the old town with narrow streets, a little dusty and dirty, but full of people leading their everyday lives. Little shops line the streets, from tiny dodgy restaurants to double glazing workshops. Here, Phil found a tailor to take in his baggy shirt and take up his long trousers. The tailor did such a profession job! The city was gently restoring these areas to keep them, rather than them growing into slum areas. The hostels were helpful; we spent an evening watching Chinese acrobats, all children doing some fantastic balances, tumbles and jumps! We went to see the Great Wall and hired bikes for the day.
We hired bikes and rode to the Temple of Heaven, and survived! The buildings were once again impressive! The roads are so busy, so many bicycles, scooters, cars, taxis and buses. There seems to be so many people in these cities!
Bus station nightmares!
It was during the Chinese holiday that we stayed in Beijing. They called it Golden Week, when everything was really busy and trains were fully booked for weeks! Trying to obtain a bus ticket out of Beijing was a nightmare. The Chinese people in hostels wouldn't help us and just said 'Bus is very difficult'. But determined to somehow eventually leave the city (couldn't just stay here endlessly!) we began our investigation into which of the 15 bus stations will have a bus to Pingyao, our next stop. After 3 days of following people's directions from station to station, queuing endlessly, we eventually got a ticket!
China seems full of massage parlors. So we couldn't resist, we had our 2nd foot massage. Japan was our first. It is quite amazing, when it hurts it's related to a part of your body that is slightly out of balance or needs attention. Weird, how my labyrinth, ear part of the foot really hurt!