Now we're talking! (Marcus)

* Disclaimer - whilst Courtney's computer's spacebar had severe issues(most of which I have corrected in that post!), this computer is missing half the labels on it's keyboard. Apologies for any painful typo induced reading. We suspect that the computers in the hostels computer room are relics from the Qing Dynasty.

So here we are in sunny Beijing - well, formerly sunny Beijing - today as usual we saw a return to the all day grey misty drizzle we have become so used to in dumpy Wuxi.

We arrived in Beijing in what was hot weather yet infinitely more bearable than what we had been experiencing back in Wuxi. It was a lot dryer heat and so much more pleasant - though later in the day as we walked around exploring it became pretty damned hot. Nowadays we do what the locals do - walk around under an umbrella. We're both starting to colour but thankfully towards brown, not red. A little bit of sun smart goes a long way in this overbearingly constant sunny heat.

The first thing we noticed about Beijing - witnessing it as the train pulled through the countryside towards it was...oh my god, blue sky! And not just light hazy blue, but an actually almost deep blue. It was an amazingly crisp clear day, the like we have rarely seen since landing in China over five months ago. Yesterday was not as clear and today was quite foggy; the light blue kind we're not sure if it's smog or fog or a combination of both.

So our initial explorations were made all the better as everything was crisp and clear and just plain enjoyable. As we have done in every trip away to date we just set out without plan. We like to explore and by doing so, always return to the hotel absolutely stuffed. I will try not to repeat anything Courtney has already covered as well, it's not exactly fun re-reading the same stuff slightly different.

Beijing is a wonderful place. We both love it here already. I don't know if it's the pre-olympics excitement, or if the place is just clean and lovely because of the impending Olympics, but there is a vibe here that's not even in Shanghai - and Shanghai was our previous favourite place. It feels comfortable and cruisy and is absolutely full to the brim of some of the coolest little stores, restaurants and surprisingly beer gardens that we have seen anywhere.

Everywhere you look there is a mixture of old and new combining to form this amazing contrast. Courtney picked a great place - a hostel, dead smack in the middle of the primary Hutong districts. The Hutongs, if you have not heard of them before, are the extremely old dwellings of the Chinese people. Many of them have been bulldozed in favour of putting up modern dwellings, but many have been allowed to stay around as they have become increasingly popular with the tourists. There is a fear that they will be all pulled down one day, and truly that will be a sad day.

The Hutongs are also known as Courtyard houses as they are generally a group of houses around a communal courtyard. As we have discovered, there are toilets and bathrooms littered all over the place - mainly for the locals themselves to use. The Hutong houses are tiny - usually single room affairs. On one hand they are fantastic for the historical side of them, but the actual living conditions in them isnt so good.

The Hutongs make up the biggest part of our stay here in Beijing. Being immersed in them is exactly the kind of experience we were looking for. We wander down the twisting alleyways and you get a glimpse of the real China. We already know much about the 'real China', as back in Wuxi, we couldn't possibly be living more amongst the locals- however the Hutong lifestyle is different again.

There's too much to write about in one post that really details what the Hutongs are about. A mere stone's throw from our hostel's location are two magnificent chinese towers; the drum and bell towers. One is simply massive and made of stone. In the centre is a large hole where the bells would sound. The other is more typical and mostly wooden, where drummers would periodically bang out the time. This was ceased i believe in 1929, but had occured for hundreds of years previous.

These two towers look about as ancient Chinese as you can get and they form the backdrop of basically everything we do. As we walk the streets they'll just be there in the background. Last night, as we sat on seats not much higher than our ankles, eating meat skewers off a table which was a few centimetres higher again, we were sitting in a laneway full of locals beside the ancient wall of the drum tower. It wasn't lit up unfortunately(and I don't know why they haven't been lit up as they appear wired for it) but we could see it's darker silhouette against the night sky. Last nights experience, sitting there eating with the locals in that street was simply amazing - even then getting drunk with one - who could barely speak 10 words of english, our conversations being amazingly with him in Chinese.

We sit there and look around ourselves and are just in wonderment of where we are and what we're doing. It truly is just the ultimate experience for us and we absolutely cherish every moment of it. We try and write of much of it down or photograph the main things as it's the kind of thing we never want to forget. We cannot reccomend this kind of thing enough - but it would be a crime to miss out on staying in an area such as this; amongst the hutongs, and seeing as much of the local life as possible.

China is an amazingly interesting place, but it's the people and their daily lives that enrich it. Being here in Beijing...this is what I had hoped to get out of China, this kind of experience, this kind of satisfaction. It feels right, and i achingly wish we lived here and not Wuxi. Wuxi provides a large dose of living the local life, but it is an industrial wasteland devoid of most of the things we wanted to see in China. I just wish upon wish we had stuck to our original plans of working in either Beijing or Shanghai. Wuxi is a dirty backwater and while it has some positives, it just cant compare.

Everywhere in Beijing are signs of it's ancient history. It is such an interesting place. Everywhere are gardens and lakes and beautiful green leafy willows and trees. It feels great - it has an almost arty vibe to it.

Today we took it easy as we were both nursing hangovers. We had a quiet walk down along the lake and went into Starbucks of all places where we just collapased in their sofa chairs and had some lunch. After this we still felt devoid of energy but decided to do something quite easy and went to the Lama Temple which is a few train stops away. Even this was too much effort at this point so we caught a taxi which only cost 12 rmb anyway - a few bucks basically.

As usual we couldn't find the entrance immediately as nothing; repeat nothing, has signage. Considering how touristy everything is, it's actually surprising how little there is in the way of directions. We met a german couple who also couldn't find their way in but we got there eventually.

The temple grounds were as expected, beautiful and serene. It actually looked like a much larger, much more intricate version of the small temple market in Wuxi itself. The rain was drizzling but it created a nice atmosphere with the ever present smoke of the incense.

The temple was divided into a multitude of rooms dedicated to different lama worship icons. The highlight of the temple was an actual guiness book of records holder - a massive 18 metre high buddah that had been carved from a single sandlewood tree. This massive thing had been carved from the one piece of wood - i cant even begin to guess how big that tree must have looked. Unfortunately we couldn't photograph inside any of the temple rooms, but we got some nice shots around the grounds. We'll upload some when we get home.

Yesterday we visited the Temple of Heaven and it likewise was very impressive. The key area as Courtney mentioned - the actual alter to heaven to pray for a good harvest was absolutely infested with tourists. There is an actual raised circle where the Emperor himself stood, and no surprise, the Chinese were lined way back to stand on it and do some stupid poses for the camera. Despite that, it was very cool just being in a place where the Emperors of multiple dynasties had been before.

There's something about Chinese Emperors that is just fascinating. I suppose they're just the eastern equivilant of the Kings and Queens of the western world, but they are different. It could be how they likened themselves as being almost deities, certainly the primary person in the world. Whatever it is, it is a surreal experience being where they were. We don't overly need to try and imagine what it looked like when they were there, as every second Channel on the 50+ Chinese channel selections is a period drama.

We're off to the Great Wall tomorrow and heavy rain is predicted. You can't win them all I guess but it's going to be good fun nonetheless. I believe it's around a 3 hour drive to get to it, but I am keen to see the surrounding countryside. On the train in there were fields upon fields of produce - actual greenery. Surrounding Wuxi is an industrial wasteland - so again it will be good to see some actual countryside.

We'll write some more soon.