Lets Hit the Beach!

Wooohooooo!

It's been hot! Did I tell you that? What better thing to do than head to the coast. Qingdao sounded like a wonderful place. They are hosting the sailing events during the olympics and have some wonderful beaches. Once a German colony they have a brewery there - The Tsingtao Brewery! And I love Tsingtao! So lets go!

Unfortunatly all we saw was thick fog for our entire stay. You could not even see the sea from the sand it was that bad...and it was cold...and it was damp!

Such a shame as I was so looking forward to it. They have a lot of seafood there too. It freaks me out though looking at it swimming around in buckets on the streets outside the restaurants....especially when i don't know what the hell some of these creatures are!

We ate dumplings too.

Bye Bye Beijing

A parting shot on our way to the train station.

The Great Wall!

As president Nixon said upon his visit - "This is a great wall"

We went on the "Secret Wall Tour" that our hostel offered. They take you to an unrestored section of teh wall which is away from all the tourists and all the hassle of touts that goes with it. We had a local guide who was about 70 years old, no english, not water and sporting some pretty cool hardcore workwear. This was quite a hike and at the risk of repeating myself...It was hot!

It was a pretty good trip as there were only 10 of us and the wall but I would have also like to have seen a restored section as well but without the masses of people.

You can't have everything in life.

For Your Clothes Here's A Pretty Flower.

Dinner!

Thanks to Bradley for the recommendation!

3 ducks had to die for our eating pleasure that night! Yummy!

(Having the head on my plate still freaks me out though)

Forbidden City

Ooooh! It's the Forbidden City! So called as this is where the monarchy lived away from the disgusting peasants. Never venturing out unless it was to the Summer Palace. It is absolutely huge! The guide book says that it could take you three days to really see it. You would have to be some kind of masochist to do this. Its great and all but its so hot and there are so many people that you just want to keep on moving and appreciate it for its enormity.

After you get through it there is a park at the end with a hill that you can climb to see over the entire city! Wow!

As you can see in my photo the smog was so bad that you could't see much.

Some Chinese Architecture.

I dunno what the 3 nuns is...it seemed to be some kind of shopping mall/office block but the other thing is the national theatre building if i remember correctly. it has this crazy "moat" around it like a horizon pool which gives the illusion of the water going right up to the structure....it doesn't.

Summer Palace

So we went to the Summer Palace for the day....well actually we spent a lot of time trying to get our Vietnamese visa and then looking for a boat to take us to the palace with only vague directions from the Lonely Planet which can be your best friend or worst enemy at times.

I do not enjoy tourism...I am not going to tell you much about the "sites" because i can not be bothered most of the time.

So we found the boat finally and chugged along to the Summer Palace which is basicly where the emperor and family would go in the summer to escape the city. This not actually a palace as such....it's an enormous complex of parks, lakes and...erm...a palace I guess. It was bloody hot and as we went by boat we got dropped off right at the grounds which ment a long walk (though nice) to the main palacy bit. I drank beer and and ate some dumplings. I like dumplings a lot and decided to try and eat them every day while in China.

This place was beautiful by the way and if you ever go to Beijiung its worth the trip just for the amazing gardens. China is so green!

Doesn't poor old Reto look tired....

Beijing

China was a breath of fresh air after Mongolia. As soon as we crossed the border everything started to go green and the magic of the Chinese culture began to unravel. Gardens, small communities, farmlands and chinese writing! Oh yes! We have reached some kind of civilisation at last. First impressions of Beijing were that it was a modern and clean city...and finally we had arrived to some heat. The hostel that we stayed at was pretty close to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Everything is being redeveloped for the Olympics so its a little bit of a mess on the streets. You can look forward to seeing plenty of "traditional" chinese buildings all painted in grey with fake bricks attached to the walls with red trim on your screens when the Olympics starts. The first thing you notice about Beijing is the smog. After visiting other cities in China I doubt that it is all down to pollution. I think that China gets a pretty bad rap from the west. China is an incredible monster and reform in regard to pollution/manufacturing is a slow process. We read that some Olympians were pulling out of the games to due to the pollution. Their loss. The Chinese are not stupid. They are going to impress the pants off everyone. Once they stop the factories for two weeks and shoot that shit up into the sky to make it rain it will be perfect weather with beautiful blue skys.

It's a pity i loath athletics....

Beer is cheap in China - And good! Tsingtao large bottles were less that .50p and thats kick ass! Food is also fantastic but where there is no english and you are just pointing at pictures it can be kind of random. I had a lovely dish of what appeared to be spicy, battered, fried chicken bones with cashew nuts.

Yum.

Hurro Hans Brinks!

Oh my gawd! Sorry for going so quiet but china has this fucked up thing where the control and censor all media and blogs are deemed to be an in controlable method of free speech and are blocked in china. I am now free and in the peoples republic of Vietnam.

We were unsure about even wantng to stop in china but we were very pleasantly impressed. Very nice people and a very beautiful country. China is a whole trip on its own and as we don't have all the time (or money) inthe world we decided not to spend toomuch time here but make it another trip. We are now in hanoi which is hectic! Tomorrow we head to Sapa for a couple of days then back here and to Halong Bay.

Stay tuned for more on China once I get to spend half a day on a computer!

Chau!