Mickey Mike, our Intrepid leader, had previously lived and working in Beijing for a number of years, so he was going to recommend some places to eat... and man.. what a good job he did...

Day 1: We were all tired/jet lagged and in awe of the whole China thing, we jumped into taxis and headed to a 'landmark' then wandered down into some Hutong, passing locals watching the China/Japan football match outside around a small portable... past numerous street vendors mainly selling fruit and cooking snacks.
We ended up in traditional Beijing (Peking) Duck restaurant, in the middle of the Hutong, very local, chinese people leaving did the staring, so we knew we were off the beaten tourist track...
The food: we ordered a mix of dishes to go with the duck, broccolli, pork in a sweet sauce, shredded potatoe deep fried, kung po chicked, sweet and sour pork, and some others.. but no rice! It seems the has been something lost in translation between chinese cuisine in the East and the West. Rice is a filler eaten at the end of the meal, if you are too poor to have enough meat dishes, so our lavish Chinese restaurants which cost us a fortune, have created a different slant on it.
We were also lucky enough to try some most exellent local chinese beer, several bottles - just to be sure...

So this lavish dinner - would have cost 75+/head in uk.... it cost me 30yuan... including the beer !!.. That is not 50quid, not 20, not 10, not 5,4,3... but 2GBP !!!
Crazy...!

Day 2:After our long trek on the Great Wall, we were up for good food, and lots of it !... plus it was a last night in Beijing so we were also going to hit 'bar street'. Mickey took us to another Hutong, to a place he used to hang out when he lived there, it was to an openair barbeque... It was dirty, loads of locals all with their t-shirt tucked up into crop tops {more on that in a later post} again we got the stares - glad to know we are still glamourous and fffff-fabulous... The food came almost straight away in huge German style jugs, about 2pints - nice one!.. Then the food started coming in a staggered stylie..
First up was lamb and chicken kebabs, done with a spicy coating... yums all around - good stuff!.. Then the spicy bread... it was like two thick slices of very doughy break on sticks, then dipped in a coating... very good...
And the food kept coming... Pasta thing - ravioli, with a hint of spice.. some more kebabs, including Chicken heart - was a bit rubbery - but tasty.. it was a replacement to the order chicken testicals, which I don't think I would have tried ! {if the dirty queens are reading this, it was a cluck cluck chicken okay..!}

I can't remember all the food we had, but we were all stuffed, and it came to even less than the first night, just so cheap! We get ripped off in the UK!

After the Barbie, we headed to SunLuTi (sp?) to the bar district near the youth hostels... funny that!... and we then progressed to the cheap bit, or otherwise described as the seedy bit... beggars, dealers, ladies of the night.. it was all hanging around this part of town. . . but we quickly slipped into a sort of ex-pat/backpacker haunt The Happy House.

Vodka Coke 10Yuan
Vodka Sprite 10Yuan
Vodka Redbull 10Yuan
bottle of water 20Yuan

Get the idea - what could we do!.. btw 10Yuan = 70p

They had a little dance floor and when Grease came on it was time to dance, well that was my excuse to get away from the insanely complex drinking games going on out on the roof garden... A gallon of sweat later.. a chance to chill with Micky... He knows I am a pink feather boa life membership holder, as Chrys is on my Emergency forms... so he opened on a gay theme, asking about Brighton and the pink pound... and how the gay community get ripped off... strangly the same story the Argus were running in Brighton the weekend I left... spoookey!.... But anyway.. it was soon broken by one of the waiters coming up to me and asking me to help him..
"Can you tell me, what this word mean.... SissCee, do you hear of this?"
So okay yes, I have - "what it mean this word?", I tried to say it was either used to suggest someone was gay, or quite girlie... and he seemed quite pleased.. asking me to spell it for him... He was quite camp, but was wearing a football shirt - so I don't know where it had come from...
Maybe it was obscure humour and he was indirectly calling me a sissy, or my dancing, or maybe one of the other customers had called him a sissy and he wanted to know what it meant... I don't know - but it was a nice 'moment'...

The night started to slow down, as member of the group peeled off back to the hotel, until the hardcore drinkers were left, me, Mickey, Adrian(six), Sam, Sian and Victoria... Mickey was wrecked, but I had been on spirits all night and was not even tipsy.. they just don't work on me... but hey.. we bailed... back to the hotel.. via a very understanding taxi...

Have you heard the joke.. Knock Knock, who's there, John, John who.. John the baptist (at this point water is thrown) well this joke meant the taxi got very wet!!!! and so did we Grr!!

A good night had by all... ! 2 hours sleep until we have to check out, and the do the forbidden city... so much to do :-)

OK.. I am getting pop-ups on my screen, so I think I am out of time, so I will finish here before all this typing disappears from the screen for ever...

More updates - when I can : -)