beijing: day 1

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Guess I was too excited, woke up at 5:30
Slept again and woke up at quarter past 6

Went down for brekkie at the hotel. It was pretty bad -.- like when the best thing was the baked beans... Hmmm...
Now I need to think about what I want to eat tomorrow...
But yeah the hash browns were cold and the boiled eggs looked a bit weird - like a bit too much grey on the surrounds
Met a family from Melbourne over brekkie, one mum and two boys (Tony and Davo); one of the boys is the same age as Isaac so they're getting along swimmingly via mutual complaining over pretty much anything chinese

We left at around 8, while the sun was still breaking over the city.


First stop was Tian An Men Square
Photo time.
Followed by ammonia public toilets. I don't like thinking about how awful my shoes and coat are bacteria-wise. These toilets were even worse than the ones in nz, so that's really really REALLY saying something.



And then it was the Forbidden Palace. Awesome as always purely on a historical basis,  aesthetically, most of the buildings aside from the main one are getting a bit run down. Sadface.
We toured for about 3 hours in my yellow gum boots. Inc the royal gardens where we saw some old trees and rocks. Now I know i'm making it sound pretty bland, but these rocks and trees were in really cool looking formations, carved over hundreds of years and stuff...



For lunch, we got drive to this restaurant for peking duck and the peking duck was pretty ordinary...SAD. face.

Then it was bustime to the Temple of Heaven, where the emperor prays.


Then it was shopping time! the bus dropped us of at what i would describe as Beijing's Ginza, (i.e. expensive shopping).
Mum, Isaac and I ended up sneaking off to a food court instead and indulged in the china-equivalent of chatime. Pearl milk tea, lemon lime tea. We also got hongkong eggette 鷄蛋仔 (which ended up tasting better than the eggette I ate in HK lol)


After that we got driven to some random library for traditional chinese acrobatics performance. Standard stuff with juggling, plates, umbrellas, tight rope.
Highlight, for the skills and lols, was definitely the guys jumping through hoops. Most flamboyant performance ever.
They ended each move with a flick of their hands and Isaac kept mocking them (scarily accurately).


Then it was dinner at some random Chinese restaurant and the Boys (referring to isaac, tony and david) got talking about their drunken shenanigans at schoolies, etc. Shaking my head. So much alike...
Post dinner bus trip to the hotel was the most hilarious thing ever cos isaac was busting to go, and it was (of course) the most bumpy ride ever. We were also seated at the back of the bus, so extra lols!

After that, we went down to the hotel gym cos Isaac was feeling unfit.
The gym was locked. And we bumped into another one of our tourmates there, coincidentally trying to get into the pool table area. But both him and isaac didn't know many so I had to go and ask the concierge.
How do you open the tee yu quan (體育館)? and the guy said 15 min away and I'm like lol what?
And then realised i asked how do you open the stadium? LOOOOOOOOOL
I was like not that, the other one...
Oh! You mean Jiang Shen Fong (健身房)?
Isaac was just like SMH. Well, even I was like SMH since I was so completely off...

Now showered and all clean.
Going to sleep at 10 for the early morning wake up call. Oink.

Pretty knackered. Not looking forward to walking the great wall in my dirty china clothes tomorrow -.-





donna.