So...

Finally we got to the next country! Now we are at Beijing, a city of 13,5 million people.. That's alot of people swarming in one town.

First thing's first, we arrived in the town of Erlian 10th October 2006 at noon, there waiting, were the people of the travel agency from which we booked ourselves onward, they took us to the bus station from where we'll leave towards Beijing (also know as Peking). We had a couple hours of wait before it would leave so we headed first to grab something to eat. We found this locals place where the food was cheap so.. We had this sweet and sour pork dish with rice and tea and it cost only around 2 euro, It was delicious! Now we really get to often eat at Chinese restaurants.. =)

Onward. I told about this sleeper bus, it took some 13 hours to get to Beijing, it was quite confortable except that the 'bed' was designed for Chinese people so it was little bit small..
I managed to nap for a couple of hours. We arrived at Beijing 11th October 2006 at 4 o'clock in the morning, so there weren't many people around at first. We decided to head towards the centre of town to look for this cheap hostel  which the French girls at UB told us about..
We found a cab and it took us there. Only problem was that the girls wrote on a paper slip's each side two different hostels which I mistook for the same..
So, we dazzled around these Hutong districts for a while, and whilst getting little angry (I got hungry and Joni's arm started to hurt), we decided to first eat some breakfeast and then find a place to crash.
We got a western breakfeast and then the owner told us where this guesthouse (we looked for) was, he also directed us to the bus stop which leads there..

So we went on and took the bus and got to this guesthouse.. Finally.


This city is really awesome!

Okay so, after settling down we headed out and found this fruits market, we went there and bought some fruits and some freshly baked bread. We sat down nearby and took a break to eat, afterwards we sought for coffee and came up to this place that was obliviously just opened, it seemed that we were amongs the first customers to be there.. It was a really nice place with awesome decorations, under the floor, on the walls and on the ceiling.. Of course the coffee cost a bit more but I think it was worth it..
We continued our dillydallying around and little later we were stopped by this young looking girl, she spoke some English and asked us to come see her artworks, she told that she's a student (also she said that we'll have our names calligraphied) so we went to take a look, and I must say that these people really know how to make nice paintings.. Of course she wanted us to buy some of her work but we weren't so interested and only took our calligraphied names with us.. Free souvenir =)