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 t...