Anyway, arrived in Beijing lunchtime today after an actually rather good night's sleep on the train last night - good news that we're finally getting used to sleeping on a train on the final leg of the trans-Siberian!
As we rattled into the station in our old banger train we saw some very future looking white bullet trains. Am hoping the train to Lhasa will be one of those - if only for a new experience!?!
Our hostel here is rather nice - probably the nicest place we've stayed so far - in a city certainly. It's more like a sociable hotel really and super slick. They have bicycles out in the courtyard that are free to hire so we're going to get a couple tomorrow and head to the Forbidden City and maybe a couple of Hutongs if we have the time and energy.
This afternoon we went to Tian'an Men Sq which was pretty massive and very Soviet looking (it said that in the Lonely Planet but it's probably the best way to describe it). We saw the beginning of the flag lowering ceremony but got a bit cold so came home.
Had a dinner with our group plus the other group doing the same route as us - which was 14 people in total so it took a long time for any decisions to be made! Most people had Peking Duck (when in Rome...) but I had a massive inside out exploded fish. Yes that is what it looked like! Very nice though a little bit MSG-ish.
Then we hot the night markets - and were quite glad that we'd already eaten! Lots of things on skewers - scorpions, bee cocoons, silkworms, testicles, seahorses :-( amongst other things...
That's all for now folks!
M&G (a bit like MSG but less orange)
Melly you sound so much better. GREAT. Great Photos, specially Porgie's. Hope you got the recipe for the inside out exploded fish; did you try the seahorses? ... don't bother with recipes about testicles, another human rights issue! Reliable sources tell me that the prisons are full of eunuchs!
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