Day 3

We started the morning off with writing our recap of the day 2 events for this blog. Unfortunately, this didn’t work so well, as the browser could not show blogger.com due to the internet big brother here in China. Fail. However, we ended up going through Sandra's work instead. Take that China internet filter!

We'd arranged to go to the Great Wall tomorrow, so we decided to just go around town for the day. After just getting out of the hotel, this guy starts talking to us. First to me in English, then to Sandra in Chinese. Mistaken Identity Count 3 (MIC 3). Ok, I've heard that Chinese people like to practice their English, so whatever. This guy is an art student, and "luckily for us" the exhibition he was in closes today. Hmm, not so into the art, but ok, let's see what you've done.

So we go with this guy and his chick to the 5th floor of a hotel to see his "exhibition". Looks like some students just hung up some paintings in the back of their classroom to me, but whatever. It came as no surprise that this was all a sales pitch. No thanks dude, good luck with it. When we asked if we could take his picture, he said no, and disappeared.

We then went towards the Forbidden City. On the way, this other guy started talking to us. MIC 4. Ok, cool, he seems nice. He then starts telling us about how he's a teacher, and is coming to Australia soon. Cool, what do you do? "I'm an art teacher, come see my work". *Scratch head*, wait a second... Can I take your picture? "Ah, no, my mother says that it will steal my soul". Hmm, much how like you are trying to steal our money.

LIE: "Sorry, we just bought some stuff by those students over there."
"The ones on the 5th floor of the hotel?"
"Uhh.....Yep".

So after having enough of the Beijing art world, we finally made it to the entrance to the Forbidden City. Hey, this place it pretty nice. Not many people, and cheap too. Very peaceful. Wait up, this isn't part of the Forbidden City, it's just some gardens.


That massive horde of people over there is the entrance to the Forbidden City. Bugger, we'll come back on Monday when people are back at work.

Massive queue!

After giving up on the Forbidden City for the day, we made our way to some comfy benches for some more chillout time in the gardens of peace, before heading into some small sidestreet food place for some authentic grub. Tasty. (MIC 5).


Since our hotel is right on the Wangfujing strip (awesome shopping place), we gave that a go. Not as many iPhone 4 cases as you'd think. A few cases of MIC here. Let's say MIC 6. We did find the most awesome bakery product ever:

Also, what would you buy here:

The night time entertainment was going to be a live show called "The Legend of Kung Fu". We booked at the hotel and got them to write down the address so that we could cab it there. We got told that it should be no more than 30RMB. The cabby said no less than 50. How about 30? No. (MIC 7). Ok, screw your cab, we'll walk. We have 2 hours, and it'll be a great way to see more of the city. Besides, how hard could it be to find?


After 13 sets of directions, and 1 hour and 50 minutes later, we were walking down what should hopefully be the right street. We were still not 100% sure if this was the right way, and even less sure if we would recognise the place when we saw it. But then:

Yeah, pretty sure that's it. In your face cabby!


We were expecting a martial arts display but this ended up being more of a cross between martial arts and performance theatre. Still, pretty good I have no idea how it shapes up to regular theatre (being the cultured guy I am and all), but I enjoyed it.

The walk back was pretty cool. Night walk! Although it did unfortunately bring out the beggers. Damn beggers. Some just don't leave you alone. Being white in Beijing just makes me feel like a walking magnetic dollar symbol. One distrubing scene was when we passed what looked like a pile of human bones. As we got closer, we realised it was some rake-thin child when they blinked. Pretty full on stuff. And on that cheerful note... until tomorrow!