Just looked through your photos so far. It struck me how "westernised" everything appears - clothing, vehicular traffic, electronic goods (of course!), hotel furniture etc - quite different to the drab sameness of peoples clothing and squiilions of bicycles of of a few decades ago. All looks fantastic! Keep up the travelogue and pics. Cheers, Rob

Hi Rob, yes the place is in many ways very westernised but you are wrong about the bicycles and motorbikes: there still squillions of those! But there are now also squillions of cars. Apparently there are now 7 million cars in Beijing and it is growing at the rate of 10,000 per week!!! Which with a population of 20 million is actually .05%!! Glad you are enjoying it!

Fantastic photos! I'm enjoying reading your blog over breakfast. I hope you continue to get internet connectivity so we can continue to follow your adventures. This is a great site for this sort of thing-Good choice.

Cheers,

Paul.

Thanks Paul, say hello to the family for me. Glad you are enjoying the blog. I may be a bit intermittent over the next week or so as after Xi'an we will be on the Yangtze cruise so could be difficult!

So is it the 12th Nov, or the 11th Dec? SORRY! Either way its still wrong :(

Hi All,

I noticed the date problem on some of the photos myself last night. It was dad's camera: it had the date set incorrectly. Have now corrected that so future photos should appear ok.

Hi Chris & David, Good pics so far. Chris, the date stamp is 29 & 30 May 2004 - bit strange??

Looks like you have had a good start to your trip.

Have fun!! Rob