Beijing in all its glory

So its been 5 days and we've had ups and downs, it is definitely not the easiest of countries to navigate, maybe its as we are new to all the this travelling lark. You don't see as many tourists as I thought you would, star bucks is a must for the free WiFi and I take most any opportunity to ask a western a question if needed, most are very helpful and provide useful tips.

We've explored the great wall at Mutianyu, our group consisted of Americans, Argentinas, Australians, Russia and Singaporians. Its spectacular, we walked afew km up to the oldest part and back again, felt like a good workout. We both said in England you would need, hard hat, safty rope and safely rail. We had a big lunch together and went in a little van thing, very cosy indeed! A women from Singapore started to throw up on way just after our guide told us not to worry about bird flu! Also the roads are crazy, if there are four lanes you will get maybe 6 lanes of cars, our driver drove the wrong way down the road at one point, the traffic lights seem to only be an indication, they go on red and green regardless.

Been eating in bakers, small shops and shopping malls as its cheap and quite good, izzi got spag bol for a change, looked okay.

Spent about 3 hours booking out next few weeks, booked hotels and hostels in Datong, Xian and Shanghai, went to the train station to book tickets between them and booked flights online. No one spoke English at the train station so resorted to pointing, hand signals and pen & paper, we think the tickets are correct?

Still getting used to the fact that facebook, Twitter, blogger and other western websites don't work.

Explored the forbidden temple, its was okay. Not that much to see in my opinion, lots of pots and various other artifacts but no English or writing about them so struggled to get the jist abit. The temple of heaven was good, impressive buildings, opted out of a audio guide as is was more expensive than the actual ticket, good fun trecking around it, its massive. In hind sight audio guides for both places would of helped we think.

Next we leave Beijing for datong on our first train journey, only 6.5hours, could be interesting.

More to come....