The next day I slept in heaps. I went down to the expat hutong area for breakfast and then went shopping for the finally things I needed before I left for my big train ride. I went back to the hostel to check out of my room and check in to the room which was booked for me via the Vodka train tour. It took me around 1 hour to get the receptionist to understand what I was talking about. It seemed very odd if Vodka train normally used this hostel that she had no idea about the tour or a pre booked room!!
After becoming rather frustrated I went for lunch with an English girl, called Mini, who was on her gap year. She was waiting for her friend who was meant to have arrived the day before from south America. She was a bit stressed where he was and was getting sick of waiting around without any news. After an extremely long lunch we returned to find her friend waiting at the hotel.
I went up to my room and meet my new travel buddy for the Vodka train. Her name was Jenny and she was a journalist from London who had been travelling for the past 5 months through New Zealand, Australia and south east Asia. She had just been really ill for the past few days in China and was really ready to move on to a new place. After chatting for a while we headed down stair for our information session and to meet the others.
I decided to do the Vodka train tour as my Dad was not very keen on me travelling through Russia alone. The vodka train claimed to be for young independent travellers who did not want to feel like they where on a tour. In each tour you were meet by a guide who would take you to your hotel and tell you about what there is to do and see in the city, then it is up to you to work out your own plan.
The team consisted of two Germany guys called Peter and Bjorn, 5 people from New Zealand, Maryanne, Dean, Chris, Emma and Daniel and two other Aussie girls, Tracy and Yeresa and Jenny and I. Mark was our guide in Beijing and spoke very little English and recommended if we wanted to eat breakfast that we should go to McDonalds. At the initial meeting he was meant to tell us about the trip and important information like could we really not get money out in Mongolia. The whole meeting was a waste of time expect we learnt that we left for Mongolia in two days time at 6,30am.
After the meeting Peter, Bjorn, Tracy, Yeresa, Daniel and I went out for a drink at the guitar bar that I went to the other night with Dad and Steph. Everyone seemed really nice and we got to know each other better.
The next day I rented a bicycle and rode around Beijing. First I went to the Lama Temple and chatted with a monk from Tibet. He was really sad and told me that he had been sent to Beijing to work at the Lama temple and could not return to Tibet. I took him at I had been in Tibet and we talked about how it was changing. It was really nice and the temple was interesting even if it did not contain anything that was from Tibetan Buddhists.
The Lama Temple
After the temple I rode to the temple of heaven park and the shopping centre and got some last minute things for my trip.
The temple of heaven park
That night I had dinner with the Germans, Jenny and Daniel at the peaking duck restaurant and then went out to a roof top bars for a few drinks. The Germans where both Chemist and studying their PhD in Heidelberg Germany. Daniel was a carpenter from, Nelson NZ, who was moving to England at the end of the trip to try and find some work.
The next day I did not do much and went out for a few drinks with the others. The next morning we left for Mongolia.
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