Beijing Part 2

After checking out of my crappy hostel (yay!) I went to the meeting point hotel for my China tour group. Was luxury! I went out and got lunch, and a Chinese girl got talking to me as she was passing my table. She was very friendly, and I think she wanted to parctice her English... we ended up chatting for about 1 and a half hours! I went back to my hotel room, where I had flowers waiting for me that Kearrin had arranged to be delivered! Very spoilt! Met with my group and leader, then we went to a Beijing (Peking) duck restauarnt. Had a massive banquet, with the famous Beijing duck- the chefs carve it in front of you, before we placed it in little pancake things, with a dipping sauce... delicious. But all the food was amazing. In the morning we headed out to the Great Wall, to the Simitai section. This part is a bit quieter than the main section, which was a bonus. When our local guide was quizzing us about the wall, and asked why it was built, every Aussie answered "To keep the rabbits out!" (Too much TV!) Was really cool, you could see the wall winding along the mountains into the distance. I climbed quite quick, which was difficult as it was very steep in some parts. The view at the top (well, as far as we could go) was spectacular! I enjoyed the solitude, before heading back down. I caught a flying fox down to the exit point (was pretty tame). We drove back to Beijing via the Olympic Park; they are building some very bizarre stadiums! We enjoyed another banquet dinner, even better food than the previous evening! A few of us headed out to explore the city; we found a cosy little bar & enjoyed a beer & popcorn before calling it a night. The next morning we had a local breakfast of dumplings & pancakey thing. [My stories tend to all involve food, as it is so good over here!] We also saw a random police speech/gathering out the front of KFC, complete with the SWAT taem! We hired a local guide to show us around Tiananmen Square & the Forbidden City museum. There were a LOT of people at the square, including a few school groups & some very cute toddlers. Our guide told us some very interesting facts about the Forbidden City... there are 9999 rooms in the palace as 9 was considered lucky, one of the Emporers had about 3600 concubines. The City was very impressive and large, however the 2 main biuldings were closed for renovation which was disappointing. There was a nice garden area which the Emporers used for relaxing, which I enjoyed. We went to lunch- yet another shared banquet, and again better than the others! After stuffing ourselves silly, a few of us went to emplore the hutongs, which are small tradiational alleys. They used to be all around Beijiing, but many are being destroyed to make way for new buildings. It was really nice, walking by a lake & going through the quiet hutongs. You wouldn't guess that the madness of Beijing was only a few blocks away! That night we saw a Chinese Acrobat show, which was amazing, they were so talented! There was a bit of everything: tiny guys doing flips off a see saw; three extremely flexible girls; intertwining together; a crazy balancing act; girls doing tricks with Yo Ho Diablos (they are making a comeback!); leaping through hoops; then bicycle tricks- human pyramid & 12 girls on 1 bike! I was so impressed. We boarded the train the next day, headed for Zhongwei.