Lots to do, lots to see, lots to eat!! We arrived early in China's capital city and made our way to Leo's Hostel, a very friendly and social place in a great location down a pedestrian street, just down the road from Tiananmen Square. We were so early that we had to wait a few hours for our room to become vacant which gave me chance to scope out the area. I walked around the quiet, dusky streets and found some great street food stands selling what I eventually called Beijing Egg Muffins, two greasy flatbreads with a fried egg between them, perfect for soaking up alcohol the morning after! This was to become our regular breakfast in Beijing as there were many late nights watching the World Cup!!
One morning we did try something different, there was a restaurant a few doors down from the hostel selling cheap noodle dishes. One of the bowls we had was simply called 'Beijing Noodles' and consisted of thick, ribbon like noodles with shredded cucumber, beansprouts, thinly sliced pink cabbage and a fat dollop of black bean sauce. Mixed together, the combination was a rich yet refreshing sensation and definitely a memorable bowl of noodles.
We ended up staying just over a week in Beijing as there was so much to do and we were really enjoying ourselves at the hostel. We met nice groups of people from all over the world, UK, Mexico, Germany, Holland and we enjoyed watching the football together. We went on a great hike of a relatively unknown section of the Great Wall, away from the tourists. Other than the group from our hostel, we were the only hikers on it and after 10km of walking up and down very dilapidated and overgrown sections of the wall, we ended with a nice meal at a local's house and went back to the hostel to watch more football.
Another typically Beijing food experience is of course duck. There was duck everywhere and of course, we had to try one of the famous Beijing duck restaurants. I have to admit, the decor was all a bit glitzy and ballroom for a restaurant, especially after some of the shacks we'd visited on our travels, and I felt pretty scruffy sitting in there with my overgrown beard and hippy hairdo. It was a lovely treat for us though and the initial shock of regality soon evaporated as the chef arrived with the duck. He cut some of the prized crispy skin off first and arranged it neatly on a plate. He then went to town on the rest of the duck leaving us with a plate of juicy shredded meat. We took care in making the perfect duck pancakes and had a great time polishing off the meat. We also enjoyed some duck liver pate and other duck bits. Great fun!!
A few days prior to our duck feast, we spotted a butchers at the bottom of our hostel's road that was selling all sorts of duck products. Duck breast, duck sausages, whole ducks, duck legs, duck skin, duck arse, duck neck, pretty much everything. He had a couple of tables and chairs in the butchers so we thought we'd try a more rustic duck meal. We sat down, ordered an ice cold beer from his fridge and got stuck into a couple of juicy duck legs. With grease dripping down our chins and the smell of roast duck swirling around our nose, I have to honestly say that I preferred our duck butchers!!
I really enjoyed Beijing. It's a vibrant capital city with so many things to see and do. As a city we enjoyed it far more than our next stop, Shanghai. Getting a train to Shanghai was a nightmare because of the World Expo. They were booked for weeks in advance and we ended up having to get a seat ticket on one of the slower trains to Nanjing and then onward to Shanghai on the superfast Maglev bullet train ( I watched the speed hit over 300km/h!).
We arrived in Shanghai and made our way to our pre-booked hostel, the Captain Hostel, located on the Bund, a beautiful stretch of old, grand buildings lined on the waterfront, overlooking the famous Shanghai skyline. The hostel could not have been located any better and the view from the bar was incredible, especially at night, looking straight out over the river with the famous Oriental Pearl tower standing alongside countless other tall buildings with their neon lights flashing and shining through the smoggy haze. It's a shame there wasn't many other good things to say about the hostel. We were in separate male female dorms, the staff were very rude and there was very little in the way of a jovial atmosphere there. Probably a good thing we weren't that comfortable there because it was also downright expensive, just like everything in Shanghai. There were a few cheap restaurants around the corner from the hostel and we ate there mostly as our outgoings were skyrocketing. The food was simple Chinese and we enjoyed our breakfast won-ton soups. The highlight of our trip to Shanghai though was the fantastic World Expo. We were lucky to get in to the UK building without having to queue for four hours by using our UK passports to get us to the front of the queue! After walking around for nearly 12 hours and eating foods from various different countries, we crashed back at the hostel and watched some more world cup matches, drank beer and ate crisps, being careful not to upset the grumpy staff!
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