03 May: Beijing

Well, what I can tell you is that 2 days in Beijing is no where near enough. Especially when you spend one full day at The Great Wall (on our schedule for tomorrow!).

Tried to fit in as much as possible today tho, but it seems to have been at the detriment of my ankle. It is absolutely killing me right now (am back at the hostel, resting it before attempting the night market a little later). I think it's the muscle in front of my ankle :( Have taken 2 anti-inflammatories that I have in my toiletry bag from my Peru trip (got them as an in-case for The Lares Trek). Fingers crossed :(

Anyway, so back to the fun stuff. Went for breakfast at a little bakery across the road and got a Mango Smoothie and a triple-decker breakfast-type sandwich. Not sure what all was on it besides egg, but it was delish!

And then we all went for a quick orientation walk, which ended at Yonghegong Lama Temple. So we went to have a look around in there. It was way bigger than I was expecting. The architecture is quite lovely, but all quite the same (since I wasn't really there to be lighting incense and praying or whatever).

After that we walked from our hostel to The Forbidden City. Which is more of pretty much the same style architecture again, but on a much larger scale!! The Forbidden City is massive and I can't even imagine living there back in the day. It must've been beautiful (since it still is, but you'd have time and way less people).

It was quite interesting to see a few of the rooms as they were then and learn a little more about the lives of the Concubines.



Eventually after we'd walked The Forbidden City North to South, we came out at Tiananmen Square, right under the giant portrait of Mao! We didn't get to go into his mausoleum tho (it's only open 8-12).



We wandered around for ages trying to find somewhere to have lunch but, we weren't quite brave enough to try a local restaurant on our own.

After a quick snack stop at a supermarket, we headed to the Hongqiao Market (The Pearl Market). Which I didn't really enjoy. A lot like China City back home and I'm not really looking for bags, clothes, shoes or watches. Nor am I that interested in jewelry with pearls. But, I did really enjoy the souvenier bit ... although I didn't buy anything yet.

And then we hung out at the hostel for a while, I rested my ankle and then we ventured out to the Night Market on Wangfujing Street. That was completely one of the best things I've done here, such fun! And my ankle was pretty much fine too (awesome news!). The Night Market was a hive of activity and stalls. Plenty of weird foods that I wasn't brave enough to try. All number of creatures on sticks: scorpions, starfish, seahorses, spiders, lizards and baby birds.

I did have some shrimp that was delish and a veggie spring roll. There were also loads of souvenier type stalls and I got something there for mom (which I ended up keeping for myself! Haha).

And that was it for the day. Have to be up and ready to leave the hostel at 06h30 tomorrow morning to head off to The Great Wall :)