Monday 5 October

Such a good sleep. Maybe there is something to be said for staying up all night!! Malcolm books our flights to Dublin. No more England for us. We have breakfast provided by the hotel, but it's very tasteless. Watery rice soup, plain salt less buns, beans, and hard boiled eggs. We spend the morning writing cards, researching and planning the next steps. After 12 we leave our bags at reception and go across the road for steamed buns. We get 10! Delicious. I want to go to the dongmen shopping pedestrian street. There are lots of shops and lots of nice things reasonable. We buy some pants for Malcolm and an extra umbrella. I'm starting to get tired and want to find a post shop before before we do. I ask 3 ppl and eventually find the post shop. Thankfully they have glue for the stamps and closing envelops! We head back to the hotel. We buy more hand sanitiser on the way and some things from the supermarket. There are no cabbage streamed buns left so we get some bean ones. It's a short train trip to the border and pretty straight forward to cross. We have to fill out immigration forms and we are through. More trains. More transfers. We get to our stop. They have been doing renovations to the street so it's hard to figure exactly where to go. A helpful man helps us. Too helpful it seems. Sure enough, he wants to sell tailored made suits. Helpful at a cost. And just around the corner there are more 'helpful' men. Eventually we get to the lift without a suit. Once we figure out how to get in we relax and enjoy good internet finally without china restrictions. Great for booking and planning.