The trans-Mongolian train did finally bring us to Beijing! We booked one
night at a very central hostel, right next to Wangfujing snack market (yum) and
very close to the Forbidden City (which really isn’t a forbidden city at all…)
but ended up extending our stay a couple of times as 1) the place was really
nice and 2) we really needed to just stay put for a little while… The last
month had been intense! And it was sooo nice to sleep on an actual bed and not
on a glorified luggage rack!
Beijing
is great! And yummy! Why aren’t they fat??! They should be fat with all that
yumminess around! We stayed clear of scorpions and the likes though, left that
for the other tourists… We actually never did see a local eating them… So
there! There are a few things you need to be on the guard for in Beijing though,
unfortunately…We had been warned about different scams they pull on visitors in
central Beijing, the two most frequent ones being people – often very pretty
girls - luring unsuspecting fools into teahouses and charging them up to 300
quid for some tea sampling, or people pretending to be artists or art students,
luring travelers into their galleries where they pressure you into buying
‘art’, or where they suddenly want payment for the ‘free’ tour… We were quite
intrigued by this, and got to experience both approaches. Because we knew how
it all worked, we happily let them chat us up and compliment our teeth and
whatnot, up until the point where they wanted us to follow them to wherever,
where we said no thanks, and told them why. They were quite skilled
conversation starters we must say. They would be great sales-traders in London… :)
So, 99% of Beijing
is just lovely. And the rest is amusing if you don’t actually get fooled. We
got some great insider advice from a friend who used to live here (tack
Tomas!!), and spent a few days ticking off the must-dos, all worth while.
Eating at stalls in the snack street in Wangfujing, where we happened to live. Climbing
the Great Wall (of course!). Eating hot pot.
Seeing the Summer Palace.
Here Louise proved to be a bit too paranoid after fighting off scammers for a
couple of days… A very friendly woman from Taiwan (or so she said!) wanted to
help us get back into town, and offered us a lift since she was taking a taxi
that way anyways… Louise smelled a buried dog and feared that we were only
minutes away from our deaths or at least a proper robbing, but Lars ignored
her, and rightly so. Turns out she was just a very, very friendly lady, and we
got dropped off right by the tube station. Ah well.
After six days we boarded our flight to Japan, where we are currently
enjoying ourselves!
Lots of love!!
L&L
