Day two in Beijing - Day 11

Today was, in a sense, a bit of a failure. Though not an unpleasent one I might add. Anything beats sitting around at home, for sure! We just didn't get that much done...

On our part the day started very late, as Sophia and I had a solid 13h of sleep. We missed the fabulous morning market and the sky was alreday getting clouded (by pollution).

We failed exchanging our Russian rubles into Yuan, which we found out after queing for several hours in several banks and asking locals and various bank clerks about it. Some of them claimed that exchanging anything but euros and dollars is impossible throughout China! One suggested we might go to some sort of Russian district and cajole some Russian to give his/her yuan in exchange of our rubles. On Monday we'll try out the big Commercial Bank though. Our last resort. Our friendly Australian room mate gave us this tip.
But to quote our Swedish guys: "Det loser sig!". So no worries.

A small misunderstanding with the hostel staff made us believe that our laundry would be ready this morning. Turns out it'll be done tomorrow morning instead, which led to Hanna prancing around the streets of Beijing in her shorts and a somewhat runned down top, and me literally in my pyjamas. We felt rather chilled at the end of the day.

Buying clothes was obviously an option, but finding anything that actually fits a tall and wide-shouldered laowai and that isn't meant for men, can be a bit of a hassle. Hanna got stuck in a sweater and I just looked weird in everything. I still have no pants (apparently Chinese women only wear long johns or skirts, so I guess I'll have to conform), but Sophia and Hanna managed to get t-shirts at a souvenir shop near Tianamen Square (yes, we actually managed to do some mandatory tourist stuff today. The square itself was sort of closed off, so hordes of tourists were hanging around it peering at Mao's self contented face).

Later we returned to the fabulous veg restaurant in the hutong nearby, ate til we felt sick and listened to the ongoing buddhist conference. Our poor chop stick technique, was again a source of entertainment for the waiters.

Good night for now!

//R