So….having said goodbye to the luxury and calm of OZ we felt ready to tackle the challenges of China. From our experiences so far I think we may have underestimated how many there would be!
After the fairly long flight we arrived into Beijing around 8pm. We passed up the option of a very expensive airport pickup and found ourselves successfully navigating our way around the sprawling city on the most packed bus we have ever been on - faces literally squashed against the window - ideal really as it allowed us to see where we going -not that we had any real clue! Thankfully our stop was the last one so we were soon out onto the street again - disembarking the bus (and any other form of public transport here) is very much like those pictures you see of fishermen releasing their catch onto the deck of the boat - no english queuing etiquet here thats for sure! Part two was to catch a second bus that would take us very close to our hostel at the eigth stop. Eight stops later…. no sign of our hostel! Either the directions we had been given were wrong or ev and i had lost the ability to count to ten. Thankfully we had spotted a landmark mentioned by the hostel some way back. After a very long ten minute walk - not great given Ev’s back condition at present - and a trek up a dark alleyway, we found ourselves at the Red Lantern - a beautiful little hostel with a traditional courtyard located in one of the city’s ‘Hutongs’. This little journey only took us two and a half hours! Despite the late hour though, we had felt very safe and everyone here has been very friendly and helpful.

Our first impressions of the city and the people have been mixed. The first thing that struck us as we arrived was the sheer size of the place and the number of people that seem to be everywhere all the time - its like a permanent rush hour in London! This naturally gives rise to huge amounts of traffic and noise and people getting in your way as you meander along the streets. The language is an impossibility to master with so many nuances of tone and pace - we have just about managed the basics of thankyou and good bye so far. However, this makes for some great laughs as you try to make yourself understood. Our first task was to get some documents printed and as we couldn’t access hotmail from the hostel we found ourselves in a little side street shop the size of a shoebox and filled with far too many people trying to explain we needed a printer. after much pointing, gibbering and attempts at printer making sounds as is humanly possible we had success - any future game of charades should now be a breeze!
The people themselves are genuinely friendly and very willing to help - very refreshing and completely unexpected. They do seem to stare a lot, especially at our footwear!?! which takes a little getting used to - we figure we are either are badly dressed, beautiful, or very ugly - you decide! One of our most interesting encounters was as we left our hostel early one morning to be confronted by an ancient, wizened old little chineseman with his equally old and shrivelled pecker out, gamely trying to pee as high as he could up the side of a wall - Ev, naturally, was very impressed as he shouted and waved at us as we passed!
The negative side of being a westerner here is how people selling you stuff seem to constantly be trying to rip you off - the simple task of buying a banana is a long winded haggling affair as you bring down the price from ten pounds to ten pence. I dont mind being overcharged a little, and you come to expect it, but here the starting price is scandalous. Whatsmore, they chase you down the streets if you say no and walk away - persistent little buggers at times thats for sure (and also a sign you are paying over the odds as well!).
Naturally sanitation isn’t the best and each trip to the loo brings with it a new experience and an increasingly better ability to hold our breath and ‘take aim’. Having dug holes in the ground at Fraser Island in Oz, Ev has now found herself having to pee into a plastic bag at public toilets - a truely communal pisspot!! On one occasion Ev even found herself confronted by 3 Chinese ladies peeing with pants round their ankles and doors flung open for the world to see whilst clearly enjoying each other’s conversation! I guess thats Chinese whiskers!
The non-human sights in Beijing have been amazing. We have visited the usual stops of Tiananmen Square, the Gate of Heavenly Peace and the Great Hall of the People - thankfully no tanks to be found but due to National Week a hell of a lot of mostly Chinese tourists all very eager to see the sights themselves. It seems that pushing and shoving to the front of any photo shot is a national sport for the Chinese in which they excel! We made an early start to tackle the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall which was pretty incredible. Given the early hour, there were few people on the wall and for much of the time we had the path to ourselves. The views through the early morning mist were stunning and the leaves of the surrounding forest were starting to turn for the autumn - all making for great pictures. The wall itself was challenging at times with sheer climbs and steep drops but a truely incredible experience and well worth the sore legs!
We spent a day visiting the Forbidden City which is a huge walled complex sitting behind Tiananmen Square and was previously home and administrative quarters to the ruling Ming and Qing dynasties. Inside were many beautifully decorated temples, halls and palaces which have been restored to their former Chinese style glory with fabulous carving, colours and statues. As with Tiananmen Square, it was something of a rugby scrum to see many of the main sights, but away from the crowds it was a very peaceful place. The summer residence of the Ming and Qing Dynasties was the Summer Palace which lies just north of the centre of Beijing and again took another full day to visit. The palace here is set round the huge Lake Kunming with fabulous mountain backdrop. We were impressed by the many palaces and temples here, especially their names such as “hall that dispels the clouds”, “Tower of the fragrance of Buddha”, “Hall of Jade ripples” and my favourite, “Garden of Harmonious pleasure” (Unfortunately this last one did not include naked women singing songs harmoniously together as you might expect in a garden of pleasure!). We have now decided that our new house shall be named something along the lines of “semi-detatched of red brick and grey clouds” - what do you think?

Now, on to the rather dubious topic of chinese food. Needless to say we have had some difficulty getting used to the copious amounts of soup, soup with noodles, soup with dumplings, that seems to be the staple here in beijing, and all in various shades of beige! Strangely, given Ev’s love of magnolia, this has not gone down too well. However, it has been rather fun, if a little nerve racking ordering from the menu and not really knowing what you’re going to get, even when there is some english on the menu. Whats more, they stand by your table as soon as you sit down and wait for you order - not great when you have absolutely no idea what you are doing. The Chinese seem to have the ability to order their food, scoff it down within three minutes and be gone from the restaurant within five - they truly are speedy! Ev and I however can be found sitting at the table uming and aring over the menu for an age, spend three to four minutes examaning the food to identify its contents, and then spend the next hour twiddling our chopsticks amongst the food in attempt to pick up a slippery noodle - this is a truly comical sight - we may start charging the locals for the entertainment. Chopsticks…..what idiot in their right mind decided that this was a good method of eating? We have decided to regress to bibs in an effort to keep our clothes free from dribbles and have currently lost half a stone in weight. Thankfully we have so far been able to identify most meat - no cat, dog or rat so far!
On the flip side there is a vast array of street food which smells terrific.You can get BBQ meat kebabs, dumplings, fruit and all sorts of other unidentifiable goodies. Best so far has been the duck / quail / pigeon eggs (not sure what they were but they were tiny and speckled) on a kebab stick and covered in a tasty paste and spices. Hygiene is dubious but it all leads to a stronger constitution (and a possible need for a healthy dose of imodium!)
Well, there you have it. Sorry this entry is a bit on the long side but there is simply so much to tell and despite the new surroundings and very different culture we really are enjoying ourselves.
Hope you are all well, photos will follow