We arrived in Beijing at 3.00pm local time after leaving Cork at 08.30am the previous morning, with a six hour wait in London and a stop over in Qatar (which at that point we decided we needed a beer only to be served alcohol free). When we got through emigration we noticed all this , what looked like cotton wool floating in the air, and people wearing masks, we were wondering what we left ourselves in for. The taxi man hadn't a clue what we were saying, he had to show the address of the hotel to about four people but between them they figured it out. I was really tired in the taxi, fell asleep for a bit, Triona kept awake to watch where we were going. The smog was really heavy in the city centre, the air didn't smell too bad but I'm sure it wasn't great either.The hotel staff had good enough English, but it was under renovation for the Olympics so we were upgraded to the executive floor which wasn't half bad. The rest of the day we relaxed, had dinner, a buffet with a good selection.