So after surviving our first night on a Chinese train we arrived in lovely PIngyau with a new challenge- to try as many types of Chinese transport as possible. Added to our list by getting a motorbike-powered rickshaw from the station into town. There's lots of Western gap-yahs here...probably more tourists than we saw in the whole of Beijing in fact. Although that doesn't seem to put the Chinese off their fascination with us- the paparazzi style seems ever l...

Today was our last day in Beijing, so we grabbed some breakfast (I had rose beauty tea, delicious), and headed straight back to the silk market to finish our unfinished shopping buisness, after we'd finished faffing around with packing (I never will get used to having a rucksack that you have to pack from the bottom up- way too complicated for me).  Headed straight for the bag floor. Got a nice "mulberry" clutch, and appear to have got a goodh deal as caused mu...

Day 3 and were getting used to people taking photos of us or with us. Usually they try subtly, a sneeky photo as the walk past. Today we have been zoomed in on, pointed at and blatantly papped at all points of the day, including on video camera and even through a window when we were having lunch and whilst Nicola was blowing her nose! everyone wanted us to be in a photo with them, on their camera. So we have a new tactic- when they ask us, we ask them back- cle...

So  yesterday we walked more and climbed more stairs than we ever thought imaginable. Had breakfast in the hostel (pancakes yum), and felt pretty bad for ordering a cappucino, which was on the menu but the clearly didn't really know how to make it and they spent ages on it- good though! We organised a taxi for 8am to  take us to the great wall and the Ming tombs, and they turned up complete with a tour guide that we deinitely had not organised."Sophie" was pre...

So we have arrived in sweltering Beijing, despite having sadly failed to get upgraded on the second bit of the flight...oh well, cant have everything! So...Beijing is VAST! It took us nearly an hour to navigate the airport (which is roughly the size of a small town), and then on the way in we saw so many high rise enormous buildings al so close together that it was quite unbelievable. Surprisingly managed to get taxi driver to take us to the exact right place (n...