Peking Duck

I was so excited about going out for a fancy meal for my birthday last night! We spent the day in the forbidden city, but got back to the hostel quite late.

After showering, getting dressed up, and locating the fancy restaurant on the map, we finally got there about 9.30pm. It turns out the fancy restaurant shut at 8.30pm. Hmm. So we were stood on the street wondering what to do when a friendly waitress from the closed restaurant offered to show us the way to another fancy restaurant serving Peking duck. Lucky us! On the way we were chatting and she explained that actually she was taking us to another branch of the same 'chain'. Like KFC she said. Ok, we thought, thats fine, its just a chain of really fancy peking duck restaurants where our going-out clothes will fit right in and we'll be served like kings on my birthday.

Not so. When we arrived at fancy restaurant no. 2, it seemed as if KFC had just moved out, leaving only the flourescent lighting, sticky tables and tacky decor, and the Peking duck company had just moved in. The menu arrived, and when we saw that our meal was going to cost us 70 pounds for the two of us, we decided to leave. The man behind Steven chucking his cigarettes on the floor just helped us along. I've been to plenty of tacky restaurants before, but not really spent more than a fiver in general.

Anyway, since it was late (10pm by the time we left) and all the restaurants in the area were shut, we stopped in a side street near our hostel and ate fried duck noodles for 70p each! Here is a picture of me with my noodles. Mum, thats my new handbag! Although its a wide angle lens so I'm not that small in real life.

My Birthday!!!

How exciting! Its morning here in Beijing and we were meant to be getting up very early to visit the Great Wall, but when the alarm went off we convinced ourselves that it was going to rain today and we were better off sleeping in and trying tomorrow. Now that we are up its not raining of course. Infact from my position in the hostel lobby here I can see people outside with sun umbrellas. Its almost too bright to look without sunglasses. Anyway, its nice to have a lie in on your birthday.

So, I've reached the grand old age of 29. Which feels great, especially since at the moment I'm still bumming around china and I don't have a proper job, or even a house or a car come to think of it! My present from Steven was a special carved wooden stamp which stamps my name in Mandarin. I had no idea he managed to get one for me! It is sooooo cool. At some point in the future I want to make a chinese style embroidery/painting, and now I can stamp my own name in red ink at the bottom.

Instead of visiting the Great Wall today, we are going to walk around the Forbidden City. Then this evening we are going out for a fancy peking duck meal. Life is pretty good. Plus in just over 2 weeks we are going to be in Hong Kong, which is like Mecca for camera people. I am almost drooling already.

Oh, thank you for your comments below! I'm going to try and upload a video later, although until the hostel instal Steven's new electrical system they have the occasional power cut, so I'll see how I go.

29!!

EDIT: I believe my blog runs on GMT, so I haven't forgotten, my birthday is actually the 15th :)