On arrival it was grim weather you could only see about 100m. The bus station was well out of the city so had to walk a good 40mins to find the subway, once i got there i knew where to go to get to the hostel. I was glad when i got there as i was tired from not sleeping on the bus, i had a shower and got some good information off the staff about what to do. It was about lunch time when i ventured out and went to the main square and then to the forbiden city as it was closed for the next 3 days due to an event going on! It is a really huge place full of tourists, but just about big enough so it wasn't overly crowded. I spent about 3hrs looking round and the weather had cleared up a little. After i found a lake near by and as it got dark the place came to life with lots of bars and resturants all lite up in neon, true Chinese style. The lights cast some cool colours across the lake for some good photos.
I went to the summer palace in the morning, well most of the day its a huge place and very beautiful. It is mostly a lake which you can walk round. The walk has lots of bridges in all different styles which is pretty cool. The actual palace is impressive too with a huge pagoda you could go up and get great views of the area. If it was clearer it would have been better but it was an improvement on yesterday. On the way back from here i got a little lost and got off the bus at a random place next to a huge tower the China mobile one it turned out. You could go up it but you had to pay and it wasn't really clear enough to make it worth it. I found another park i walked through before finaly finding a subway. I was way out of the centre so took me about 1hr but all trips on there are 2yuan (20p) so well cheap. That night i went to the main square and a few streets off it to get some cool night pictures of the building all in lights. It was really cool and lots of people around, i was asked to be in loads of photos with random people, very funny!
Yeaterday i had booked a trip to the great wall for today so it was an early morning (6.30am) we were going to a part of the wall further away with less tourists, i paid a little more but turned out to be well worth it. We did a 12km walk along the wall and only saw about 6 other people and there were ony 6 in our group so was really good! The weather however was not good the first half rained and we were in the clouds some of the time with was quite cool, once it cleared we did get great views so can't complain. We got back about 4pm so it just looked round the area where ti was staying round the corner from a famous temple called Lama temple. The area is a mix of old and new with quite a few small streets which i really liked. That night it was a chilled one at the hostel watching films.
In the morning i asked for advice on some places to go, i wanted to go to the silk market and the oylmpic park so that was about enough to fill the day. I went to another older part and a famous street with lots of cafes and cool shops from there i walked about 2hrs accross the city via the main shopping area i wasn't that impressed by to the silk market that sells everything "dodgy"! They really put on the hard sell and drag you in to there little stores. The market is in-doors over 6 floors each floor with different stuff on, its a maze. I spent a while that as its pretty good fun but after a while it gets a little tiresome as the store owners get desperate to sell stuff. I bought a few things at good prices, there start price is crazy its like 6 times higher than you end up paying! After this i was pretty excited to go to the Oylmpic Park after seeing it all on TV last year it all looked amazing. I got there via the subway very cheap and easy. The place is massive there are 3 stops, i got off at the far one and walked to the middle where the main stadium is. There was blue sky for the first time in Beijing and sunshine i got a sunset, amazing!! If you thought the palace looked good on TV it looks 10 times better in the metal, its really that impressive. As the sun set the lights came on ans transformed this amazing place again. The main stadium (birds nest) is a work of art. As you can imagine i got plenty od photos!
So my last day in Beijing and of the trip, i had to get the the airport about 5ish for my flight at 7.30pm so I had all day to do stuff. It was quite a relaxed morning then i went to another market which was ok but nothing amazing. Opposite that was a park with "the temple of heaven" in I went to have a look but didnt pay to go in, it klooked a lot like the ones i had seen already and boy have i seen some temples on this trip! I got bacj to the hostel around 2ish to pack my bag pray my washing was dry which it was! So all in all a nice relaxed day, i left for the air port on the express line very quick and easy (20mins). Everything was sorted i was waiting to board in about 45mins and then a member of staff said i had to go back to check in.... they said i didn't have a valied ticked and the ticket number was incorrect, they called their head office and they said there was nothing they could do I needed to call STA travel. I called and they took ages trying to find my ticket number anyway by this time i had missed the flight and STA said their ticketing system had messed it up, i was not best pleased. I demaned they got me another flight asap. The lady who i was talking to was very good and within an hour i had another flight leaving soon after midnight. Nothing like a bit of drama to end the trip!
