Sunday 15th - Alone in Beijing

Sunday 15th April

Oh the bliss of not waking up at some ungodly hour by the telephone - or it would have been if I had not woken up at 7am out of habit!! It seemed strange to think that the rest of our group were being counted by Ian on the first leg of the flight back to Abu Dhabi and stranger to think that in 24hours that would be our fate! We consumed a vast breakfast - after all we'd have to arrange our own food today and we weren't sure our five Chinese phrases would be up to that!!

Bravely and to the incredulity of the hotel staff we decided to travel around on the metro... first challenge find the metro! The walk down seemed fairly straightforward - but after having been co-opted into a young couple's wedding photos (Do they really want me on their mantelpiece for the next 20 years?) and giggling at some of the shops (a sweet shop called Drooling really should be on every British street!) meant it took ages... The metro was a blast - 20p for a ticket to travel as far as you like - maps in English and Chinese and best of all - no-one taller than me on the trains so no face in armpit situation!!

We started off at the Silk Market proper (via a quick geocache down the road!) The traders at the silk market are far more aggressive than the Yashow market we visited yesterday - Laydee Laydee Pretty Laydee buy my gucci handbag/rolex watch/hermes scarf accompained by so much grabbing of arms that a generous spreading of hand gel was required at the end. They were also very underhand there often slipping inferior goods into bags as you paid - Luckily Lisa was eagle eyed and didn't end up with even more rubbish than we were actually buying!

We then decided to go and find some more geocaches in the parks around the Forbidden City - remembering to count ourselves regularly of course! The parks were amazing - full of people performing karaoke at the tops of their voices - what they were singing was completely indescribable out of tune, off key and with microphone feedback - but cheered me up no end - finally I have seen music performed worse than me! This was all tempered with a Welsh Male Voice Choir - or so we thought - it actually transpired to be some chinese male voice choir accompanied by an accordian outside the toilets !!?? (usual state of course!!) The Bei Hei Park was particularly spectacular as we climbed the Lama temple (without walking poles :-() and were treated to a view of the whole city. The Forbidden City looked huuge (and certainly worthy of the boast of having 9,999 rooms) and all the new high rise buildings behind made for quite a spectacle.

The plan was to return to Tianamen Square in a rickshaw - but the word had obviously gone out among rickshaw drivers that Lisa and I were to be avoided - so sadly it was another long walk - only the thought of a final beer kept me going. We had decided to watch the lowering of the flag on Tianemen Sq - and judging by the size of the crowds it was going to be really impressive... several soldiers goose stepping around the flag and a flag being lowered may be impressive to the Chinese - but we're used to Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace after all, so it seemed a little flat - still not something I am ever likely to see again. So that's it - Chinese adventure over - all that remains is a taxi ride to the airport and 24 hours of flying home. I'm not sure life will ever be the same again - I would love to do another challenge - hopefully with Lisa if she's still speaking to me after a week of my snoring!

Thanks for reading - Until the next time!!