Peking is Pants...

Well it's been a busy few months what with all the moving in and starting a new job, exam time is here and I've done a load of other stuff. I hope I can update everything! First of all, I wanna tell y'all about my trip back home last August. I took Benji to meet the family and we spent some time travelling around Wales and meeting up with mates...But that was after we stopped in Beijing for a couple of says first...You can see snaps and snippets from the Beijing stop here...

Naturally, wanting the cheapest option available we opted for the crapiest of crappy airlines – Air China. We thought, since we had to change planes in Beijing anyway, we might as well stay a few days there and go see the sights in Beijing and all that. So we decided to stay 3 days, before heading over to London. Air China. Wow. What a shower of shite they are. Terrible! The airlines messed up our luggage, the staff were rude and charmless, the food crap – everything they could possibly mess up – they did. Beijing. I think Ben and I have been spoiled in Japan. China was a bit of a shock to the system. Beijing is mental. The whole city is dirty, sprawling, noisy and blanketed in a thick smog. It's an experience! Our 'Chinese Courtyard Accommodation' was situated in the ghetto, down town. It was sketchy to say the least.

China is really 'dog eat dog'. People push and shout and ball. Of course, this is a 'city thing', but even Tokyo-ites aren't this harsh. Nothing can prepare you for how desperate people are to sell you crap. They will chase you three blocks to sell you something that costs 40p. Of course, you have to haggle for every single thing you buy. Everyone tries to rip you off. It's exhausting. Having lived two years in Japan, where people would rather commit Hara Kiri than be dishonest with you, I just wanted a straight answer or a true price. One thing I really enjoyed was visiting this Tea Shop in the middle of Beijing. They had these huge gold vats of all kinds of tea. This genteel Chinese woman sat us down and poured us Jasmine tea and gave us rose cookies. I felt really relaxed and zen-like and I spent 15 quid in there without blinking, I almost didn't want to go back outside to all the chaos.

We took a trip to Tienanmen Square and saw the big Chairman Mao image and the guards milling around. We saw the big statue of 'The Long March'. Even Tienanmen Square is crazy, with about seven lanes of traffic going right through the middle. The day after that we took a trip up to a place called 'Mutianyu' – a secluded section of the Great Wall. First of all, unless you want to spend an hour hiking to the top, you have to get a cable car up to the top top the wall. The cable car is really bloody high and rickety and old. I thought i was gonna die, and was a bit shaky. But, the wall looks amazing, as if it had been built 10 years ago.

It was really, really hot and humid there and a thick fog or smog that made hiking the wall sweaty and horrid. If you have a knee condition – don't even think about visiting the wall. It's almost all steps. Thousands and thousands of steps. Also, it's...well....bloody LONG! It just keeps going and going. After two hours up there, you start to think 'OK, what now?'. You've taken dozens of photos and you have about 1,900miles before you reach the end, so you have no choice but to turn back . Luckily, at this section of the wall there is a toboggan going down the side of the mountain. From the top to the bottom. It's so weird. It's like having a roller coaster looping around Stonehenge or something! I was convinced I would get thrown off the toboggan and would get thrown into the dense forest below, only to be devoured by a pack of hungry Chinese wolves. Luckily that was not the case.

We made it to the bottom without dying, got ripped off in a café (welcome to China) then got hijacked by the tour company who tried to take us to a massage parlour or a silk shop. The other tourists and I told them this wasn't in the itinerary when we bought the trip and I told them that I wouldn't get out of the bus unless they took us back to Beijing city. There was a bit of a Mutiny on board the bus. The tour guide went from sweet Chinese lady to Scary Chinese dragon. The tour company manager was called, then they told us if we didn't go along to the silk factory or to the massage parlour then they would drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Beijing city, so we said 'fine! Now go and kindly take a flying leap', but not in such polite terms. Then Ben and I teamed up with another couple and managed to get a taxi (who also ripped us off by driving around in very large loops).

On another evening, we tried to attend the most famous Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing but got lead away by a tout for a rival (crap) restaurant two blocks away and ended up eating greasy sweaty crappy Peking duck in an empty restaurant and paying 15 pounds for the privilege. I couldn't wait to leave and vowed I'd never return to China again. BUT! At least I got to see two of the top heritage sights in the world. I admit I've been far too blanketed and spoiled in 'nice, clean and respectable' Japan. It must be some of the Japanese snobbishness towards China rubbing off on me. I've met some English teachers here who absolutely love China, so I know not everyone feels the same way as me. On the plus side, I picked up a fake Rolex watch for two pounds in China which is STILL working – even 3 months later, so it's not all bad.

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