Beijing 20.08.12

Aimee woke up to Tupperware being put in her lap at 8am, little Madeline tapping Aimee and handing her a container, she thanked her and nodded back off before being woken up again shortly after to hold another one. Axle and Madeline are the cutest kids just adorable, even when teething :)
Mel had called the airline the night before to get an update on our bags and hopefully they would be on the flight arriving at 10am today.

We had come bacon and eggs for brekkie and called up again to find out about our bags....hoorah they were here!!!!! But they wouldn't be here until 3pm we had to meet our guide at 5pm and we still had to organise and post a whole heap of stuff home.
At around 12 when the kids were napping Mel, Aimee, Bec and I went for a little shop and some lunch = the BEST fish and chips I have ever had in my life!!!!! Melted in my mouth just so good!!!!! We bought some completely legal and dirt cheap DVD series and headed back because our bags had arrived by 2:30pm, we raced back and found our three beautiful backpacks waiting for us....mine minus one chest strap, ah well easily fixed. I've never been so happy to see that Kathmandu scuffed up bright blue beauty in my life. We immediately took over the lounge room and tore everything out, shouts of "that's going and that's going, that's staying, that's going" were flying around repeatedly. It took us a good hour but we sorted it all out sending a grand total of *drum roll* 20kg between us home to Sydney via shipping for AUD60, see you in two months camel mug.....hoping the chocolate we all sent will survive :/
It was already around 4:45pm when we were at the post office so Mel called the guide when we arrived back at the apartment to pick up our bags and we jumped in a taxi to the Xihua Jade Youth Hostel, finally we got there and got set up in a room on my own!! Shock, Horror!!! Honestly I was a little bit out of sorts not having the girls with me but I'm glad we had a little bit of space I suppose.
We met up with our first Honcho, Snow  and the two other girls in our group, Alison and Talitha. Snow told us all about what we would be doing and how everything worked. Aimee, Bec and I decided the next day we would go to the Great Wall of China on a full day tour for about AUD50.00 each including lunch, transfers and three hours on the wall.
We grabbed a quick bite for dinner, we had a surprise dish which was supposed to be beef but instead was goat......I really enjoyed the goat actually and of course duck pancakes again :) We all strolled around Wangfujin street where the shops were and some of the night market before heading back, sheep testicles on a stick anyone? Don't worry you get three so it's a decent meal if your hungry *vomit*

Note: Beijing at first was not what we expected, I suppose we all thought of Paddy's markets and China town and at first it almost felt like no one was around.

Time for bed......