Beijing

Still in Beijing. Two days ago we went to the summer palace, built around a huge lake. Everything was old there. Ming the merciless and co were very busy building palaces and shit hundreds of years ago, whilest the English, French and whoever else at the time, burnt them all down again. And then then built them up again. The end.

Yesterday we went to the Great Wall. This was no thanks to Lonely Planets guide to China, which was (and has been in the past) completely wrong with regards to the info given on how to get there. In fact, it was so wrong, i scribbled out the writing on the front, and wrote 'The Wrong guide to China'. Then i burnt it in Tianamein Square whilst dancing a jig. This was of course a dream i had last night. Anyway we got to the wall, and it made all the shit we've gone through, and the constantly getting ripped off, worth while. You should come to China just to see the wall.

To top off the day we had Peking duck for dinner. You even get a authenticity certificate with the duck. We have number 87030. THE best peking duck ever. This reminds me of the friend of ours who ate an entire peking duck by himself in 1 sitting. He knows who he is.

Today went to see pickled Mao, the corpse of Mao Zedong. Of course, this didn't work out, as nothing in this country seems to, as they wouldn't allow us inside with a camera (they spotted it under Tham's jacket!). No need to mention to the stupid red guard that our camera is quite large, and that the thousands of people streaming past him could be loaded to the hilt with miniture cameras, and mobile phones. Get out of the 80's man, i say!
Anyway, Tham saw the rotting stinking zombie corpse that is Mao (I'm not bitter). She reckons he looks about as real as a Mr Potato Head, if Mr Potato head was dressed in one of those snazzy communist jump suits.

On the way out we met this nice fella from Adelaide. He overheard me yell to the wind '...damn this effing Lonely Planet, its wrong again...'. Completely unaided from us, he proceded to tell us that Lonely planet was wrong on multiple occasions. He had also crossed out the title on the cover with the words 'WRONG'. We laughed, and then we stopped. He also had be ripped off constantly since arriving in China, but to more of an extent than us. We laughed again. As we were chatting, there was a man sitting on a wall nearby, going hell-for-leather hocking up as much phlegm i have ever seen come from a human being. He was thoughful enough to save the oysters in a little plastic bag, which by the end of the conversation, was full. Nice.
Sorry about the long entry today, but you'll get over it.

The aforementioned wall. Big.

The aforementioned peking duck. Enough said.