Peking Tom

Spent roughly 6 days in Beijing. I left there at 7pm last night to arrive in Shanghai 7am this morning.

Beijing was awesome. Did a fair bit of touristy things: the Forbidden City on my first day, then some Peking Opera that night.

Second day was the Great Wall at Badaling. Cool, but not mind-blowing I guess. Also saw the Ming Tombs, well one of them: for the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di (?) - he moved the capital from Nanjing (southern capital) to Beiping - and renamed it Beijing (northern capital). They also took us to see some traditional Chinese doctors - turns out I have too much heat in my liver. I was stupid enough to buy some of their 400kuai medicine, too. Oh yes, and that night managed to sample some Beijing kao ya - Peking Duck, which was pretty good - a pricy 168RMB for one bird however - worth it I guess.

Third & fourth days were arse-about days. Saw the Yonghegong Lama Temple - but only for an hour or so, liked it so much I went again the next day.

Fifth day we metup with a friend Jimmy, who began teaching with us up at Qiqihar - met his new lady and bride-to-be sometime this year, too. Very nice. Had lunch, wasn't too keen on the live prawns going into the hotpot though. Oh yes that night, met some nice people who teach up at Hohhot in Inner Mongolia. Interstingly one was a guy from Guyana - where I had planned to go for a volunteer program before.

Sixth day was a farce, trying to find the Summer Palace, eventually got there, with only an hour to spare... had fun getting back to the hostel in time to get the train home.

Anyway, I love Beijing. I'll have to go back one day.

*edited a little*