We are back in independant travel mode – Yay !
We headed off to our new hostel, encountering one of the many problems of relying on the Lonely Planet. Our new hostel was supposed to be in the centre of town (as per the Lonely Planet Transsiberian), however in classic fashion, we find that the address on the Internet is vastly different. This confused the hell out of our taxi driver, and my chinese wasn’t good enough to fix it. An hour later, a few detours made; we finally made it to Peking International youth hostel. It was located in an amazing hutong – a bustling street of awesome shops and small eateries. Woop woop!

That afternoon we walked down our Hutong (traditional alley); checking out awesome shops and small snack joints. We then headed for ‘ghost street’; traditionally a market which operated at night, it now was a bustling centre for hot-pot or stream boat cuisine. Choosing a restaurant called ‘Little Chili (spelt like this)’ was an interesting choice as one side of the steam boat was an un-imaginably hot sauce, that made us break out into an even more profuse sweat. After filling up on delightful beef and Chinese mushroom, we navigated out way home on the metro for a well deserved sleep.

The next morning we decided to tackle the summer palace, a huge complex in north west Beijing. This vast complex was the retreat for generations of Chinese emperors who needed to escape the heat of Beijing. It was legitimately a littler cooler, but difficult to compare 32 to 30 degrees. Friends from sundowners who had gone there earlier in the week had warned us about the crowds which forced them to abandon the place after an hour. The morning was a little drizzly, hence there were only 38,000 visitors projected to visit rather than the daily 42000.
Having bought the ‘through ticket’ we were able to go to much quieter areas. The architecture was amazing, the colours of the restored buildings and beams was stunning. I unfortunately managed to drop the key card to our hostel, which was quickly snapped up by a lady who disappeared into the crowd.

We headed back home for some rest and recooperation, and to get a new key to replace the lost one. By this stage I had filled up all my data cards for the camera, and therefore in desperate need for a new one. We decided to head for a small shopping centre suggested by our hostel receptionist; however without a name and only a random direction to go on, it was definitely an afternoon mission – Beijing has massive blocks and the city is huge. Bargaining was successful (40% cheaper and a third of the price at home). A coffee at an Englsh bookshop called ‘Bookworm” was a nice way to relax after a massive day.

That night we decided to hit Wangfujing, originally a classic style hutong, now a massive pedestrian mall, with small side alleys serving cuisine, like live scorpions on sticks, frogs and various other cooked mammals. After a long day, it was a little too busy for us to hang around long and we were soooo hungry and not game enough to try the food on offer! We retreated back toward our hostel to a great Chinese Beijing cuisine restaurant that had become our local.