Hi All

Hope everyone is ok and we hear that the weather has been really hot. This is what we have done so far......

The Journey

Alison: The journey was ok apart from the fact that I thought we were never going to get to Heathrow! We decided to travel via National Express but an hour in to the journey we were escorted from the motorway by police as the bus had a fault. After a long wait somewhere off the M1, a replacement bus finally arrived to save us. The flight was very long but not too bad. It was a little scary when we arrived in Beijing as quarantine officials came aboard the plane to take our temperatures. We were warned about this but it was alarming to see them with masks and goggles carryng what looked like guns. The official walked straight up to me and pointed the gun at my head before firing! Very strange.

The hostel is really nice. My first experience of hostels and I have not been dissapointed. Staff are friendly, rooms are clean and big bottles of strong beer are 30p a go :-)

Day 1

Nigel: Once we put our bags in to our room, we thought we would venture out to see the surrounding area and check out some of the local cuisine. After a 10 minute walk in 35 degree heat we stummbled upon a authentic Chinese restaurant called KFC (you may have heard of it). One thing that we did notice when we walked back to the hostel was the amount of traffic and how you put your life at risk every time you cross the road. Luckily we have now worked out how the system works, it's basically still look both ways when the green man appears and run for your life.

Day 2

Alison: We went to the main Beijing shopping district on day 2. Took a long time and got a little lost. Plenty of fancy shops and actually quite nice. We had to keep ducking in to shopping malls to cool down as the heat in town was incredible. In the evening we ventured out to a duck restaurant that had been recommended to us. It was quite an experience as the staff spoke no English at all.

Day 3

Nigel: We visited Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City today which was really nice but did get a bit repetitive. We won't say much about it because hopefully the photos will do it justice.

Day 4

Alison: We rested as exhausted with jet lag. Waking at 2.30am every day isn't fun! Hope this blog wasn't too boring....we have started to bore ourselves a bit so time to call it a day!

Take care,

Alison and Nigel