There are some things you have to see before you die; this has got to be one of them. Located at the heart of Beijing, the Forbidden City was home to the Ming and the Qing Dynasties and is one of China’s best preserved historical sites. Now open to the public you are free to explore the labyrinth of around 800 buildings containing numerous historical exhibitions.
Beijing is unseasonably warm at the moment apparently, and on the day I visited we had almost perfect weather. Unfortunately renovations are currently taking place on two of the major buildings, in readiness for the 2008 Olympics, but there was still plenty to see! You could easily spend a week exploring the site, so no doubt I’ll be back for another visit in the future.
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This morning we were travelling along the express-way (think M25) heading to work and someone ran into our taxi from behind. The drivers procedded to stop in the middle of the 3-lane road and have a heated argument with half of Beijing behind us getting very angry. After they had got it out of their system they both got back in their cars and we drove off - no details exchanged, I guess insurance doesn’t work in quite the same way here!
In the evening we went out to eat a local speciality - Beijing Duck at the famous restaurant Quanjude. Here you can see waitress no. 0247 (they don’t have names!) demonstrating how to wrap the duck meet with vegetables and sauce into small “lotus leaf pancakes” (skins). It was seriously delicious, very filling, and probably equally bad for you 
At the end they give you a card showing your “duck number” - mine was the 1.15 hundred millionth duck (.300408) they had served since 1864!
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Last night we went to a Chinese restaurant for Hot Pot. What is that you might ask? Like the name suggests you basically get a brass cauldron filled with boiling water, simmering over hot coals. Everyone sits around this and cooks thinly sliced meat and vegetables as desired (a pologies for the poor mobile pic!). Whilst I could stomach most of it I didn’t quite fancy the live shrimps - somehow watching them writhing around in water put me off! The rest was very delicious, the best part being that we were to only foreigners in the restaurant - always a good sign 
Coming soon: What happens when your taxi has an accident on the middle of the express-way? Find out tomorrow!
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