I Love B J (At least thats what the T-Shirst say)

Tuesday 5th October

Beijing is fantastic, but incredibly busy as the country is celebrating their national holiday for the week. We were expecting to be wandering about like lost sheep when we arrived so were totally chuffed when someone met us off of the train and took us directly to our hotel. Yes you heard me correctly, hotel! Its great, it has proper beds, a tv and even a kettle that plays classical music as it boils! We are all in our elements and have had umteen showers since we arrived.

The interesting thing about china so far is that nothing seems to be off limits as far as food is concerned! Take for example out breakfast buffet, which consisted of chicken nuggets, cauliflower and meat rice! Then last nights dinner which consisted of an entire chicken including the head which made pauline heave when I started to devour it with enthusiasm just to gross her out :) I think I am going to love China!

We headed off to Tiananmen Square today and wandered around totally alone (except for the 2 billion other locals that had decended on the main tourist area for the day) it was incredible. We spent 5 hours meandering around the forbidden city using one of the audio tours that made you jump out of your skin every time you walked passed one of the automatic announcements.

The place was huge and you could easily spend an entire day there, if not more, however as we were pretty short of time we opted to look around the main halls and then headed off to Tianemen square itself.

The square was packed full of people not actually doing a great deal, they seemed to just be spending the day somewhere that was special to them. The atmosphere was great and it really was quite emotional being there whilst so many people were celebrating.

We wandered about until our legs couldnt take it any more and then we headed back to meet up with Tyler's friend from Cranfield who had moved back to Beijing the year before. We were very embarrased as they had brought us all a gift and a special present for Tyler. We had only brought a small book out with us as it was all that we could carry so it seemed a little unfair.

They also insisted on paying for dinner and in usual style ordered way more food than we could have ever eaten, but it was delicious (even the tofu with crab seeds which I didnt think I would ever like). It was great to speak with peopl local to the area and the family were lovely, I am only gutted that I didnt have the chance to meet them in Cranfield.

They also gave us some great advice concerning other places to visit within China and offered to set us up with their friend who was a tour guide in case we had any other questions. Its always good to use someone who is recommended, which is why I am sorry that as soon as we got back to our hotel we were greeted by Wu, the slightly cooky tour guide who had met us from the train. He had already been phoning us throughout the day apparently and was very eager to arrange a tour for us probably about as eager as we were to get rid of him so we quickly signed up for a great wall tour for the next day and headed off to bed.