Robbie’s Travel Adventure!

Another busy day in Beijing. Today we went to visit the Olympic village, the Bird’s Nest stadium was pretty incredible. As well as its size the structure was extremley impressive. Korea came with us and whilst in the park we were spotted by some school kids who wanted to speak english, this prompted Korea to tell them we were British actors which meant about 5 cameras worth of photos with them! After a wonder around th park we headed to the main shopping street in Beijing. Altough it sounds strange it felt a bit like waking into China town in soho! We just got back to the hostel after a taxi ride that at home would have been close to 20 pounds was in fact 2 pounds 20!!! Tonight we plan to head to the nearby night market where grant is contemplating eating scorpian. I dont think i am brave enough for that but may give the snake a go!! Thats all from me today!!

Hello everyone! We are finally here! We arrived in beijing yesterday morning at about 9.30am loclal time. After clearing customs and collecting our luggage we had a short car journey to our hostel. The first things we noticed that were different was the smog, which i had previously warned tristan about although  he did not believe me! Secondly the roads, whilst driving along a motorway we encountered a pedestrian walking on the central reservation and a car reversing down a sliproad. Once we got into town it becam worse with bike doing as they please and pedestrians strolling into the road. On arrival at the hostel we had to wait till 12 for our room, so a sit/snooze in the common room was good enough for us. Once in our room we did our best to catch up on sleep. In the afternoon we went for a wonder around the area, the majority of buildings are one story which quite suprised us but its pretty cool. After our wonder we decided to get something to eat, after about an hours looking for a suitable restraunt we managed to find one with pictures on the menus. We ordered far too much food but ate and enjoyed it none the less. The evening was spent relaxing in the hostel bar where we met fellow travellers known only to us as Guiness, Korea, Frenchy and Chicago. See if you can guess where they are from! Today we visited the Forbidden City which was just incredible, the sheer size of it is stunning as well as the intricacy and detail. Adeed to the spectacle was the scrums to see in the chambers there was no queing or patience, just pushing. We soon found we were part of the attraction ourselves, with chinese tourists asking us for photos with them or trying to take a sneaky one from a far. After the Forbidden city we went to Tiananmen square. Again the size was just mind blowing, but also the fact that things like the so called Statue of the people was blocked off and only seen from a distance. As well as Mao’s mausoleum, which was a simillar size to the parliment building was all gated and not open to the public. So far i love Beijing although we knew it would be different, no amount of anticipation can prepare you for the difference. We’re off to find another restraunt now, hope to get another entry on tomorrow night after we have been to the Olympic village! Bye for now!

Well everyone the time has come! We leave today, in about half an hour in fact, so i guess this is goodbye. At least till july! I will do my best to keep you all updated via this blog, email ... [Continue reading this entry]