well well well, here i am in china! at first it just felt like china town until we started seeing the real side of things.. especially from the great wall! in the first 3 days we saw tianenman square, the forbidden city, teh great wall, the lama temple, markets etc.. we went for a ride on a rickshaw and also got invited into a family's house to see how the chinese live in a hutong (the small streets you see). at every meal we tried something new and delicious and were looked after all too well by our tour guide tom. we also got to drive past the olympic stadium 'the birds nest' and the swim centre next door to it. hopefully ill be able to make it there later in the year. ive had me experience with the squat toilets and am getting used to throwing the toilet paper in the bin and not down the toilet.. also had a bad experience this morning at the airport.

we spent the day in kunming today which was a great change from beijing. the air is clearer and you can breathe freely and healthily. kunming is also known as the spring city because of all the flowers and scenery it contains. we went to the green lake after lunch. its a beautiful park like area where there is a lake and walking tracks all over it. people were paddling in boats and their were seagulls in the water. the tulips surrounding hte lake were of so many colours and looked absolutely beautiful. thats also a major difference between kunming and beijing.. the colour. beijing is very monotone whereas kunming is full of many different coluours. we also came at the time of the spring festival/ chinese new year so there are many celebrations and lots of fireworks which are set of in the street at anytime.

thats for now.. take care