The year started with 5 days in Beijing, seeing the top sights and getting used to the new foods and culture. The first day was spent at Tiananmen Square followed by the Forbidon City. The square is basically just a massive area surrounded by different buildings representing some sort of political thing, didn't really find much interest in it. Seperate to the main Forbiddon City was the Cities Gardens. The gardens were so pretty, with many pagodas and little tea houses, all painted in red, gold, blue and green. The gardens for me were the highlight of the day, spending over 2 hours before deciding to go to the Forbidon City. The Forbidon City however, was amazing, I went in expecting it to be a big courtyard surrounded by traditional Chinese characteristic buildinngs, but every doorway we walked through led to another huge courtyard, then to another and another. Unfortunaly we didnt get to see it all as we had to turn back before it closed, but what we did see was something special. The taxi ride on the way back then took us through many little allyways and streets, crouded with market stalls, restraunts and people buying fresh fruit and veg.

The Great Wall : We were all picked up the next morning by a coach which took us 3 hours into the surrounding countryside of Beijing to a tiny village next to the Great Wall of China. We stayed in a small place, not really a hostel as the familly just rent out the rooms to people. The place was something you wouldnt experience anyware else except from China, with the beds being long wooden blocks the length of a big room, with newspaper "matresses" as the padding. After lunch wich was ready and waiting for us, the lady from the place took us up past a checkpoint to get us onto the Great Wall. The section we were on isn't open to tourists, so it was just us on the one section, which made it feel even more special. Later that night a group of us sat in one of the rooms trying all sorts of bizare foods, chicken feet, a 100 year old egg ... the foot was fine, just not that meaty, but the egg was foul, it was black jelly and green ware the yolk should be, defnitly wouldn't eat that again ... We were also given squid squewers to try, not nice if you don't like fish, but at least I can say I tried it.

After getting back to Beijing, we went into one of the old parts of Beijing with all the allyways and courtyard walled in houses, protected from being knocked down, for a cooking lesson. we were shown how to make spicy pork ribs which were amazing, then we made a chillie bbq chicken which was so good me, Katie and Ellie have made it a couple of times since getting to our project. The lady also showed us how to make a cucumber side dish using garlic and chilie. Alot of the vegetable dishes around ware we are in Xinjiang use similar techniques of cooking the veg in garlic and chilie, and it's so good, much better than the vegetables in Britain, I even like the brocoli here, it's one of my favourites and is always ordered when its on the menue, surprising seems as I never ate it back home.

The next day was free for us to do what we wanted after sitting through a meeting. A group of us headed for a wonder round the shops and was pointed in the direction of somesort of traditional tower at the end of the street by an old man. We figured we had plenty time to wonder down, and if it wasnt worth it we'd just turn back. It turned out he'd shown us to a sertt of Bell and Drum towers. We started in the Drum tower ware we watched a demonstration of how the drums were used to give the time to the city in the morning, then went across the the bell tower whare we then joined in a tea ceremony. We were shown how the tea is made using different processes for different occoastions, then was given samples of different flavours, my favourite being one that tasted like turkish delight. It was the peking duck pancakes for tea, which werent that much different to the ones I would normally have, but they had that extra bit of flavour in the housin sauce that made them that exra bit more special ... mmm.