Somewhere in... Seoul (already!)

We haven't been in touch with you for a long time, but we didn't know it would be so difficult to find an internet cafe in Beijing! So you would need to be a bit patient to see the lovely photos of Mao or of the Chinese Great Wall which was really amazing. But again I am writing ahead of time...

From Taian we took the local train to Jinan, where we waited for a super fast connection to Beijing. In the local train we were once again the biggest attraction but I must say that everybody took great care of us and they made sure that we have a place to sit, considering we had standing tickets, this was impresive. Beijing was our last destination on our Chinese adventure and we left it today quite sadly, as we must say, after all we will miss China, its people and the culture. It took us couple of weeks:) to get used to the chaos, cultural differences and trying to be understood in English was sometimes very tiring, but the places we have seen and especially the people we have met can't be forgotten too quickly! At the end we have realised that there are still so many places to see, which seemed to be very remote in the beginning of our travel, but now after four weeks of our stay we would be ready to jump to the adventure and travel to more remote places. Or may be I am saying it because we are already in Seoul and China is left behind or because the time we spent in Beijing was unforgetable.

Beijing was amazing as well - the huge Mao portrait at the entrance and the grey rainy sky were giving the Forbidden city and the Tianamen square special, mystical atmosphere. The preparations for the next year Olympic games are giving Beijing special touch of rebuilding, rushing, replacing, so we couldn't wonder that some of "the" temples, or buildings were completely covered and you could just imagine the beauty behind the walls. But we could survive and still enjoyed the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple and other obligatory atractions for Beijing, which are staggeringly beautiful. Enjoying the best czech cuisine in these days we couldn't forget to taste the famous Beijing duck - which was just yummy! (it had to be for that price:) so with a lovely dinner in the traditional chinese restaurant we have celebrated our fifth month of travelling! Yes, it is incredible and it flies fast. It seems like ages ago when we landed in Bangkog and tried to get around:)

My great sis got us in touch with some czech people in the czech embassy and at the end it worked out that we could stayed in their appartement. So you could imagine that we felt pretty special showing the taxi driver address of the embassy as our hotel for the week:) Of course it wasn't just the place, but as well the hospitability of our hosts (the czech cooking, czech discussions, magazines, even the sockets in the walls were like in Czech). So once, only once on our journey with Pedro we were not surrounded by Portuguese history, stories and people, but by Czechs - the best nation in the whole world (please, let me have my five minutes fame and bear with us:)

Of course no tour of China would be complete without a trip to the Great wall! We have decided to do a bit different trip to the Wall and tried to get to the part, which was still original and a bit far from Beijing. We have no idea how, but we found a minibus, which took two hours to get us to a small town of Miyun and from there we shared a vehicle with a Chinese/German couple for an amazing ten km trek starting from Simatai and finishing in Jingshaling, along beautiful watch towers, steep crumbling steps always with continuous stretch of the Wall all the way before and behind us. Just check the photos! It was a fantastic day and trip but we arrived to Beijing completely tired. It was worth every step...

We said good-bye to China and took a plane to our next destination - Seoul, South Korea where we met up with two Americans Rachel & Nathan, who teach English in Seoul. With only one day to spend in Seoul, we got but a taste of this tidy, sofisticated city, which is the third biggest metropolis in the world.

We are off again, next to Japan, our last opportunity to use real asian chop sticks, where we'll patiently wait for Richard who will come from the UK for these coming two weeks of japanese exploration. Now we're off for some korean food and milky rice wine, only three months left and so much to see!

P.S. To see the photos, please go to both links now and start using the Where to look - photos I