Tom's first visit: summer 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Duck, duck, duck and more duck.

Beijing has one or two things to offer in the sightseeing department. So we got to work and started working down the list. Naturally we saw Tian'amen square and the Forbidden City. In itself a mammoth task, taking most of the day. The city took us hours and luckily wasn't too busy, so we managed to get a few decent pictures with only about a thousand other tourists in them. 


After those two we were fairly shattered but still, we headed down to WangFuJing food street to see people eating bugs and other weird things on sticks. Unfortunately the amount of things on sticks have greatly diminished from only a few years ago and the street was just one long shopping alley full of novelty chopsticks and silly hats. Still some of the stalls had food but nothing like what it used to be like. 
Of course we did a day on the wall. Climbing the damn thing nearly killed me, steep steps in nasty humidity and heat does not make for a relaxed wander about the wall. The weather was hot and humid so the visibility was slightly poorer than it could have been but still a very impressive sight. Not to mention much easier than my first visit in the snow nearly 4 years ago! To get to the wall we took the cable car/ski lift up and the toboggan back down. There were loads of idiot Chinese guys in front who thought it was funny to stop and go really slowly. They got what was coming to them when a chain of people (including Tom) slammed into the back and one lost his flip flops. I nearly died laughing!
Otherwise Tom did lots of shopping, after a few bartering tips and team pressuring. Tom would stand and try to get a cheaper price and I would walk off saying "oh look they have some here." It was a well rehearsed and successful system!
Tom flew home on the Monday and I on the Tuesday, sadly to work on Wednesday. Holiday over!