We often go to Beijing for a night on the weekends but last weekend due to middle school exams i had the Monday off so we decided to make it a 2 nighter!! Oh such excitment - i could hardly control myself! lol Anyway we set off on Saturday morning, after throwing a few things in a bag and sat on the Beijing bus munching sweets surrounded by Chinese people shouting on mobile phones (in Chinese of course).
We arrived at our hotel, where they now know us by sight which is nice, dumped our bag and got on the metro to go to a Hutong district. Using a map (and a little help from a Chinese English speaker) we wandered through some wonderful Hutongs, but it was so cold!! We found a little hostel with a bar so we went in for a warm and of course then we had to have a beer and food! Lovely place, playing Clapton and we sat in the window people watching. We left here and promptly got lost in these alleyways as dakness fell. One thing about Beijing, especially the hutong areas is that there are public toilets every few hundred meters, this is due to the fact that until recently most hutongs did not have their own toilets and many still don't. The ones i have used are clean and usually have a cleaner there ready to clean again once you leave! Once we eventually found our way to a place we oculd find on the map we were frozen and whats the best thing if you're cold? Yep food and beer again! We went into this lush looking restaurant which was very busy and full but they squeezed us in and we had a huge serving of Peking Duck, i must say this was probably the best we have had so far!
The following day we went to find Bei Hai Park and found the National Theatre on the way - beautiful building and definately on our list of things to do before we leave is to go to a concert or summat here! After a long cold walk we found Beihai Park which was beautiful, interesting and frozen solid! Amazing to see these huge lakes just frozen solid, you can tell we come from a place where we get excited if a puddle freezes lol
After this we had a tazi to the Olympic park area and went to see the stadiul (Birds Nest) being built. We took p[ictures for outside the building site and then a workmen pointed us in the direction of the building and after a bit of broken Chinese disucssions we follwed his directions and went onto the site usrrounded by men in hard hats. As you can see by the Photos on here we went right up to it, it will be interesting to see it once it is completely finished. An irate guard came and told some other foreign people theyhad to leave but he seemed to leave us alone - wonder if we looked scary or friendly?
That evening we booked in for a Chinese painting lesson and spent 2 hours in the bar painting flowers, which was quite interesting, and now im armed with paints, brushes and paper to do some at home (doubt i will tho).
Before i bore you to death though this weekend was the coldest i have ever been in my life and i have now given in and wear thermals, even if i dont think it seems cold enough! BUt also the most curious things happened to me. I was using the toilets at the hostel bar when a woman apprached me and asked if i would do a favour, of course i said yes, nd she went on to explain that this girl was sick in bed and would i take a picture . . . mmmmm i thought why would she want this?? She said that this girl did not have long to live and would be so happy if id 'take' a picture. I asked where she was and as she was in this hotel i thought 'well what could actually happen?' (Jamie had gone to our room to get something so didnt know where i was btw) I followed her with the intention that if anything looked dodgy i would just come straight back, the hotel was busy with lots of people around. When we go to the room the door was open and there were a few people in there, and in the middle of the room there was a very badly disabled girl in a specially made chair, probably in her late teens. I spoke to her, gave her a bunch of flowers and they took pictures of us, and she seemed to get very excited and the following day when i seen her in the foyer she recognised me even though her disabilities were so severe. So that was my good deed of the week, though the prceedure was very strange!!!
Well have fun everyone and catch you soon xxx
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