Beijing...round one

Our first encounter with the Mongols at immigration did nothing to deter our determination to see Mongolia.

By 9am the next morning we were queing outside the Mongolian Embassy appying for our Visas. With relative ease we filled out a rapid visa application and was told to come back at 4pm the following day. With the rest of the day open we decided the best plan of action was to explore Tian'anmen Square. On making our way to the square we were joined by two very polite english speaking chinese girls. After 10minutes of constant questioning we found ourselves in a 'student art' shop. By the time I realised we were being scammed and trying to back out of the shop, it was all to late. Zinta was already up to her neck in the scam, by buying two average chinese artworks because the one of the very polite english speaking chinese girls was the surpose artist. Oh well, lesson learnt. We now have a code word to let each other know if we start to get caught out. It is a bit more subtle than yelling RUN!
We did finally make it to Tian'anmen Square once we had escaped the scammers and passed through the secuirty checkpoint. It's a massive open area in the shape of a square!!!! Apart from having a dead guy (Chairman Mao's Morseleum) in the middle and 'the' national falg on the north side, that's about it.

    

One thing we did find interesting was the food on offer at the street markets.

The next day we successfully obtained our Mongolian Visas. Hurrah!! It was off to the airport to fly back to UB.