Arriving in Beijing Day 11 29/9/2014

Green and warm.  Looking out of the window when we woke at 8am the scenery was much improved.  Lots of hills, green fields and different coloured landscape although there were a couple of cities with a huge number of tower blocks (at least they were more attractive than the Russian ones!) and some huge factories and power stations belching out smoke.  We were very excited as we entered the suburbs of Beijing and saw lots of bullet trains as we came into Beijing North station.  Arrived on time at 11.40am into Beijing's main station.  Said our goodbyes to Lee and headed out of the station to the taxi rank.  Initially quoted a fare of 460¥ to hostel and managed to negotiate down to 320¥.  However when arrived at hostel realised that despite reading about the inherent taxi scam at the station we had indeed been done and should have paid c30¥!  A noisey and busy taxi ride to our hostel, Kelly's Courtyard in one of the hutong districts only two blocks from the Forbidden City.  It really is a lovely and tranquil place with all rooms facing into a central courtyard.  A real oasis.  We both had long showers (needed after the train journey) and Simon shaved off 6 days of stubble before we headed out into Beijing.  John, the hostel owner, recommended the Beihai Lake area which we walked around (very beautiful helped by a warm and sunny day).  We then went to the Drum and Bell Towers and walked down one of the busy alleyways finding a place to eat on a terrace over looking the street.  We shared a cold (very) chicken dish and a sweet and sour chicken dish.  Some of the dishes on the menu were definitely to adventurous for Di!  These plus two beers cost less than a tenner!  Got the metro back to the hostel which was clean and easy to navigate with all signs and announcements in both Chinese and English.  Went to bed tired after catching up on emails.  Facebook and Google embargoed by Chinese!