Our last full day in Beijing and we started off by visiting Tiannamen Square (The largest open square in the world) and The Forbidden City. Both of these were again packed with Chinese Tourists but The Forbidden City is so large that once you get in it doesn't seem as bad. Our guide was really informative and told us all about the history of the Forbidden City and about the Emperors which was really interesting.
After we had been around the Forbidden City me, Liv and Kirsten split from the rest of the group and went to the Summer Palace. It took us ages to get there as the first taxi we got in tried to make us change cars into an unmarked black car at which point we walked away. We had a long walk to the nearest tube station were we went 2 stops before hailing a cab for the rest of the journey. This left us with just over an hour to see the whole of the Summer Palace which was impossible. We decided just to make our way to some of the places mentioned in the guide book and ended up at the Temple of the Fragrant Buddah which was beautiful and worth the climb up the many steps to see it.
We got the tube back to the hotel and quickly got changed before meeting the others to go see chinese acrobats. These were really good, with children as young as 10 performing different tricks and displays including diabalo tricks, balancing acts, contortionists and jumping through hoops. On the way out we nearly got squished by the stampede of chinese people desperate to be the first out of the theatre.
The next morning we set off at 10 to catch the train to Zhongwei. We had hard sleeper seats which were two lots of three beds on top of one another in a little open compartment. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be although the squat toilet on the train was avoided as much as possible! Sitting on the train was a good way to get to know others in the group, drinking wine also helped with this and we played cards and uno to pass the time.
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