BEIJING- Chinucas' first meeting- 11th November 2007

We landed from Hong Kong; Cass was waiting for us as she had landed from Paris a couple of hours earlier.

We went o the hotel in a little minibus as we were 5 with bulky luggage. We had to negoatiate the price but we managed to get if for RBM 400, approx 40 euros which was not bad as it is very far away.

First impression....this is HUGE AND POLLUTED.

Driving here is soooooo dangerous!! there is no law at all, you just do whatever you want to do, full stop.

We got to a place close to the hotel, LUSONG YUAN , in the HUTONGS area but the guy couldn't drop us at the entrance so we had to walk 150metres surrounded by chinese staring at us as if the had never seen western women before.

Well I have to say the tourism is mostly chinese so you hardly see Western people.

Our hotel was a Hutong, which is the typical Beijing buiding.

The streets are packed with toilets, later we understood why.. there are no toilets inside the houses so people walk in their pyjamas to go to the loo. Don't ask about showers, we did not go in just in case!

 

We went for a walk and after 2 hours waking in the dark and freezing Beijing we ended up in TIANNMEN SQUARE with Mao's mausoleum, opposite the FORBIDDEN CITY. Amazing buidings, stunning I should say.

 

We headed down looking for a restaurant to taste Peking duck and after waiting for almost an hour we sat down.