Monday 27th August - Arrival in Beijing! We made it, extremely tired but we made it. There were no problems at all with border control, and my passport was christened with its first stamp wooohooo! It all went pretty smoothly, two taxis were there to pick us up although they obviously weren't expecting the large bags that we had brought with us, so we waiting a while for them to sort out the logistics. I then experienced for the first time Chinese driving - Im pretty sure there are no rules whatsoever, beeping the horn seems to be the only constant action; in the following couple of days we learnt that the chinese people are fearless when it comes to crossing a road. The roads that run through the city are like motorways i.e at least 3 lanes each side, and people just stroll across; having said this their traffic light system is completely ignored as well, we patiently wait for the green man to show and when it does you still have to dodge the oncoming traffic. Only yesterday did we see an elderly woman cycling against the traffic flow carrying the largest load in a trailer behind her, these people are honestly crazy!

Right enough ranting about the chinese driving system, there is so much more to update you lot on! So after some crazy driving we arrived at our 'Sleepy Inn' hostel which is beautifully situated between Houhai and Xihai two of the lakes in Beijing and settled into our tiny rooms. Us four girls are all together in a 4 bedroom dorm and have managed to make an obstacle course out of all our clothes and bags - 100 times worse than my room at home, surprising I know mum! The following morning we took a lovely stroll round part of Xihai tasting my first real chinese cuisine that came in the form of a yogurht drink, was yummy! It wasn't however enough to settle our grumpling stomachs and so we ventured into the hutong area in search of something more substantial. It was there that we found the equivalent to a 'greasy spoon' restaurant, without being able to communicate verbally with the waiter I resorted to pointing at something that resembled chicken noodles from the picture menu; it turned out to be really tasty although slightly bizarre having noodles for breakfast.

There were many things that we had to get done before university starts such as; finding a home, setting up bank accounts and getting chinese mobile numbers among other things. And so soon after breakfast, which only cost something like £2, we headed off in search of a bank. We found it without problem, but when trying to explain that we wanted to open a chinese bank account proved to be slightly more difficult. We were eventually understood and 3 hours later we were all leaving with chinese debit cards - first chinese achievement! Another personal achievement was the consumption of donkey that evening, for those of you who know how fussy I am this is a big step forward, what did put me off though midway through the meal was when someone pointed out the directly behind me was a poster on the wall of the cutest donkey; the food lost its appeal after that.

On the subject of food I definitely do not recommend trying Baobing ice cream unless you enjoy the weirdest mixes of food. After a lovely stroll round Houhai one evening I really felt like an ice cream, and to my delight saw it on the menu at a bar on the side of the lake. So I ordered Baobing but what arrived was not at all what I expected, the bottom layer was flavoured ice , pleasently nice but not when the layer ontop was lentils and green peas...yes you did read it right LENTILS and GREEN PEAS. On top of that were lumps of geletine, not like haribo just lumps. Not something I would ever recommend - it was apparently amusing to the others though to see my disappointed face.

The next task was finding a home and a task that we really wanted to get done asap as it was becoming slighly claustrophobic in our tiny box of a room. After looking at what seemed like millions of flats we finally came across two that happened to be in the same building, it was as if it were too good to be true.. and it was. We hastily backed out of a dodgy deal with a fake landlord and lost the other flat to someone else. But there was hope when shortly afterwards we found two identicals flats in the same building and I can now say that TARA HAS A HOME IN BEIJING! We signed the contract this morning - hooorayy! Moving in tomorrow and so this afternoon I have been able to pack and update this blog. I hope that it has given you an insight to life in Beijing so far, the only thing that I haven't yet mentioned is the weather. It is HOT - constantly covered in a film of sweat...yummy, we have also only had one clear day in terms of smog.

Right, well thats it for now - peace out!