Hello!

First blog entry - hope you're all excited!

So I arrived in Beijing with much drama. Got to Heathrow in planty of time with the rents in tow and lo and behold - terminal 5 was once again screwed. The baggage belts had broken so nobody could get a flight out. Why we couldn't just carry our luggage onto the plane ourselves I don't know! Anyway so I waited and waited being shoved into about 10 different queues with thousands of people all looking confused - and then half 4 came and my flight had gone!

I was ringing everyone I could to try and get some anwers or advice on what to do - I rang BA, STA Travel, the travel insurance company...all of them said I just had to wait it out. And wait I did...I stood in a queue for customer services for 9 HOURS! And eventually they told me I could get a flight in an hour to Hong Kong and then another flight from there to Beijing. I was so happy I was only missing one day of the tour. The bloke on the phone told me the next flight wasn't for 3 days! So off I trotted, quite happy on my 12 hour journey to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong I realised that STA had messed up my ticket numbers and it might cause me hassle for the rest of the trip. So I tried to loacte my phone cards and mobile but my card didn't work and my phone had ran out of battery. It was time to board my flight to Beijing and I was so tired - I'd been up for like a day and a half by this point and did not smell good.

I made it to Beijing woo hoo! I had written out my hotel name in chinese and gave it to a taxi driver who just looked at it and shoved me in the car. I didn't know he didn't the way until we were driving round in circles. i had to get him to stop and call the hotel so they could give him directions using the intertnational sign for phone - you know where you make your hand to look like a phone? I know know that here that also is a symbol that means sex!!

Anyway I was so tired when I got to the hotel - I met my roomate Cate who is from Aberdeedon (banana! I asked her if she knows you - but she doesn't!) and then passed out!

DAY 1

The Great Wall of China. Was amazing! We met our tour guide Puma (not like the cat/sports brand!) and the rest of my tour group (there are 15 of us) at about 7.30am and then took a bus ride to the wall. When we got there we got cable cars up to the top (I have a slight fear so was s***ting myself!) the wall is massive. And so worth the journey - it is so good! We set ourselves the challenge of walking up to he top in an hour and I was sweating buckets! The weather has been about 40 degrees the whole time! The view was awesome and we when we'd finished we were allowed to toboggan down! Complete tourist attraction but who cares it was so funny!

That night we went to see a King Fu show, some of the kids were doing some brilliant moves but sadly I was so jet lagged I fell a bit asleep in the show! So did everyone else though so I didn't feel too bad! The food here is amazing - I was really worried it would all be sea food and stuff but its so good. I'll never go back to normal chinese food at home now. And its so cheap! A huge bottle of beer is 1 pound and a full feast of a meal is about 1 pound 50!

DAY 2

Went to Tianamen Square where they had the riots 20 years ago - as you can imagine being China there were no memorials for all the people that died there or anything. We were getting well stared at and Puma told us that it's because we're "Westerners" so thats the nickname we've given ourselves now! Everyone on the tour is really nice, I'm one of the oldest but it doesn't matter because everyone is really fun, there was a guy here in his 30's but he left for some reason or other.

After the square we went a bit temple crazy and visited a place called The Forbidden City and The Temple of Heaven. We also went to The Pearl Market and were harrassed so much! People grabbing you trying to get you to buy stuff - you can't even browse! They wonder why youre in there if you don't want to buy their handbags, fake ipods, pashminas etc etc!

That night we went for an amazing duck dinner (and I don't even like duck but it was so gooood!) and then went to see the birdsnest stadium where they hosted the olympics. We found a hotel called The 7 Star Hotel that was so posh and we all piled into the lift thinking we would get chucked out (that would have happened at home!) but they invited us in and we had cocktails on the top of the hotel with the most amazing view over Beijing! And all becuse we were westerners and they thought we had bags of money!

DAY 3

Went to walk around Beijing city and went to The Silk Market. We knew what to expect this time though so were keeping our eyes down when we were being harrassed to buy stuff. It's really weird here - all of their old people go around collecting plastic bottles and they carry loads of them on their backs. We don't know why - we think they must get money for recycling them or something. Also the people here eat scorpions on sticks as well as lambs testicles (someone tried them - I did not. Apparantly they're quite spongy!)

So that night we took our first overnight train to Shanghai - the train was loads of fun. We bought some of the local drink which we call Bernie (because it burns your heart when you drink it) and we all had bunks next to each other. Each set of bunks sleeps about 6 people. I was pissed and passed out on the train which was around 14 hours long. The toilets were minging and I know know its not great to get so drunk on an overnight train but it does pass the time quite well!

So that was Beijing! To sum it up - very clean city, not as busy as I thought it would be and the great wall was so good I would go back and trek the whole thing if I could!