Tastebud Tourism

After visiting Jenny's very impressive school and getting a bit of admin done this morning, I ventured into Beijing itself to do some sightseeing. I had read that Beijing is big but you don't quite appreciate how big until you try and go somewhere like Tiananmen Square. A vast, busy road separates the metro station from the square itself so once I had taken a photo of the square from a distance I tried to find my way under the road to get to it and ended up being ushered into a huge one way system of shuffling tourists going into an area called The Forbidden City.

After about half an hour of shuffling past nothing much, I ended up at the Forbidden City Palace Museum entrance which I wanted to save for another day so I spent about another ten minutes finding the exit by which time I was so far from Tiananmen Square I gave up and wandered down some back streets instead.

So whilst I have not seen much in the way of sights, I have eaten some amazing food, including something in the buffet last night dubiously named "Lumpy Bacteria" which I think is their translation for mushrooms. I found a little restaurant full of locals all hungrily guzzling some amazing looking food down so I went in and ordered this huge bowl of hot and sour soup. It was delicious.