BEIJING!

This weekend was AMAZING. I still can’t believe that I was at the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and Summer Palace. I really loved Beijing.
We left on Friday at about 4 to take the e bike to the train station. And then the train to the airport and then the airplane to the taxi and then finally the taxi to the hostel. Our flight was delayed about an hour and we had to sit on the plan for a bunch of that with no air and I was roasting. That was the bad part of our trip haha. We got into the hostel and I was very impressed. It was really nice and actually was voted best hostel in all of Asia.
We left the hostel Saturday morning at about 6:15 to take a little bus to meet up with our great wall tour bus. They gave us breakfast. It was a egg mcmuffin from McDonalds lol and I picked off the ham thing haha. And it came with a coke and Matt saved his and it was sitting by him in the seat and he feel asleep and when he woke up he spilled it all over his seat. Luckily this guy next to us was sitting next to a box and so we traded and the box took the coke seat. The bus ride was about 3 hours and we got to the great wall just after 10. We decided to take the little cable cars up because Matt hadn’t done that yet. It was pretty cool. And we saw a couple horses on the way. Climbing the great wall was seriously so cool. It was beautiful and just unbelievable. It was really hot climbing up and an absolutely beautiful day. We could see pretty far considering that we were still in China and the smog factor is never gone I don’t think. We got all the way to the 5 window lookout building and then decided we needed to get back so that we could make it to the lunch down at the bottom on time. We didn’t go back down the cable cars because we wanted to go to a couple of the shops that were down the other trail. I got a book with pictures from the great wall and also a T-shirt that says I climbed the great wall. Matt haggled with the lady and got them both for like 25 RMB which is like 7 dollars. Then we made it to lunch and then back to the bus for the trip back.
We ended up back at the hostel sometime after 6 and we had a new roommate. This guy named Michael that was traveling around by himself so he came to dinner with us. We borrowed some bikes from the hostel and went to this really busy restaurant and I had some food that I liked. I tried some duck because it’s just something you have to do in Beijing and I also had this really good honey chicken. Everything has the bones in it here so I just ate it with my hands but it was delicious. I took some pictures of the meal that will be up on facebook in 8 minutes from now. There was also this really good fruit milk drink/soup that was nice.
After dinner we tried to make it to the famous market that has all the live scorpions to eat and like snack on a stick and all that but by the time we got there it was closed. And we were beat from climbing the wall so we just went to bed at like 11 again.
We woke up and ate breakfast at around 7:30 at the hostel. It was an American breakfast so we had eggs and toast and some fruit and yogurt. It was delicious then we made our way to the Forbidden City. There were a ton of people there! We decided to get the audio guide instead of an actual guide so we could walk to wherever we wanted so we walked around with this little gps block around our necks and a headphone in. It was really cool because it knew where we were and would talk about that building. We walked around there for a couple of hours and then took a look at the Tiananmen Square and got on the subway towards the summer palace. And that is where I saw my first little Chinese kid pooping in a public place. Just right at the bottom of the stairs down the subway this little kid was just pooping away and his mom was just whipping it up with toilet paper. I don’t understand how they think that is the best way haha.
We got off the subway and ate at McDonalds cause it was right by the subway and would be fast because we were kind of on a time limit. It is way better here then back home. I got a chicken sandwich and it was like one you would get at an actual sit down restaurant back home. So good. And it was spicy and just delicious. Then we made our way over to the Summer Palace.
I can’t imagine that there are many places on this earth that I will like better then the summer palace. I just thought it was so beautiful. I have a bunch of pictures from here up on facebook also. I saw my second kid pooping in public. We walked around and hung out by some of the water and watched the koi swimming around and admired the plants and lily pads and buildings. Went up to the Buddha incense temple and a bunch of other buildings all over. Then we took a yacht back to the beginning because it was really cheap and then we didn’t have to walk all around. Left the summer palace and took the bus/subway back to the hostel to get our stuff before flying back home.
We didn’t make it home until after midnight but it was well worth it. I had some an amazing weekend. One of the best weekends ever. This week we are just going to go out to eat a few times, go see kung fo panda in theater, and get a massage together. Should be fun and then we are off to travel some more. I’ll write more later!