Huw's China Challenge: Beijing Baby! Day 2

So after a good night's sleep, Mike, Cecilia and I headed to the Forbidden City. Now I went to the Forbidden City before while I was in Beijing and can honestly say I wasn't too impressed. And now I can say that my opinion has not changed. It is impressive for maybe the first 2 minutes then it's just boring. Each hall looks like each other and, as we were there during peak season, it was FILLED with Chinese tourists...

Just as before, the best part of the Forbidden City was Jingshan Park, which isn't even in the city walls!!! Jingshan Park is located just north of the north gate to the Forbidden city; It is a gorgeous park with some beautiful pagodas placed on the hill that dominates the park. This hill provides great views over Beijing and there is also a place which is apparently the centre point of Beijing city.

After Jingshan we headed to find some lunch and decided what to do next. As Cecilia and I had been exploring in Beijing before we wanted Mike to see as much as he wanted. However Mike was sick to death of temples (I could sympathise) so we decided to have a chilled out afternoon. We headed to a hostel bar called the Three Legged Frog and had a cheap beer (which was awful...), but we played cards and we also played Taboo! Now Taboo is always fun but playing it with Mike and Cecilia proved to be hilarious!

After we had exhausted the Taboo cards we headed back to the hostel to plan our next move. We met up with Alex and her friend Kat and invited them to come with us to Hou Hai, a lake surrounded by bars. We all found a bus and made our way there.

Once we arrived Mike, Cecilia and I went to go find some food, while Alex and Kat chilled out in a reggae bar called Reggae Roots. After searching for some decent and cheap food (it quickly became apparent that there wasn't any), we decided on some beef noodles. They were awful... and expensive. I miss Xining's food already! Everything was really tasty and so cheap!!!