'The journey of a thousend miles begins with one step' - Lao Tzu

Good afternoon to those in China and good morning to England! I have finally sorted myself out and i am sitting at my swanky new desk in my study room (oh yes) and writing my blog. I need to catch everyone up on my week in Beijing and my time in Jiangxi so far.

Day 1 - 14 hours on a plane was not fun. We were held by delays at Abu Dhabi airport due to a broken computer (worrying) and all our excitement had been drained from our previous flight from London to Abu Dhabi. The seats were comfy but had far too less leg room for my spider legs although there was a variety of films to watch and the food was actually pretty good! I slept around 3 hours of the trip so we all arrived in Beijing pretty grumpy and feeling grotty! We didnt have much chance to shower or even think, we stumbled out of the airport, getting stuck on escalators (yes, normal esclators like in the UK we got stuck on) and were put onto a coach to go to our hostal. My room slept 7 of our project trust volunteers and one quite friendly chinese girl. We headed straight to tiananmen square where the scenery was beautiful, the gardens around the forbidden city showed beautiful buildings and scenery but that was soon forgotten when we were lost in Beijing and forced to shout for a taxi (a tuctuc in our case) to come and get us. We then went out for some food ( a feast i should say) .. its fair to say in china that you will never go hungry!! After this we visited a pub and arrived in bed far too late for what we needed.

Day 2 - Our day began searching for breakfast in which we found some muffins and biscuits, traditional chinese food, i know! We were then split into two groups in which did a cooking class (i can now make noodles from scratch and made a delicious chicken dish, although i avoided putter the chilli's in mine). After this we went on a scavenger hunt in which i tested my chinese for the first time; they managed to understand me so i was pretty happy. The hunt didnt last for long and me and Catherine decided to go shopping and brought a bracelette in which we are going to buy one in every place we go (its a girl thing). That evening we then travelled down to a hostal near the great wall. An eventful night; i belly flopped on a concrete bed which was camaflouged by a sheet and then was somehow forced into eating a fish eye ... hmmm.... (didnt actually taste toooo bad). The night drifted on and we sat up playing guitar and singing along and eventually got around 2 hours sleep, pretty good for the concrete that we slept on... little did we know what we had to expect tomorrow

Day 3 - On the Monday we all woke up and headed up a rather large mountain to go and visit the great wall ... not the tourist part with a tabogon but somewhere where tourists were not allowed to go so it was very old but beautiful. I still cant decide if the walk was worth it, i spent most of it moaning (unusual for me i know) and sweating but when we got to the top the view was still outstanding despite the smog. The trip home was a much quieter one with everyone sleeping but was soon disturbed by karoke that night. Most of us went to a karoke place where we rented out a huge room, leather sofas, marble floor, huge screened tv... and of course, a large amount of alcohol. Was a fun night with everyone ending up singing and ending at another rather late night but again, another early start

Day 4 - Still running on very little energy the day consisted of sitting in a meeting with the british embassy and the CEIAE .. to say the least Dan had to pinch me a few times to keep me awake but in the second meeting many people drifted off and there was little me, Dan or anyone could do to stop them ... funny really. After this we spent the night in our favourite bar playing pool but ended the night having a suprisingly funny encounter with some of our fellow volunteers drunk and once again, a late night despite needing our sleep for a 6o'clock wake up!!

I can probably imagine some of your boredom with my blog right now but it was tricky fitting so much into one blog, i will continue writing the jounrey to Jiangxi and my time so far on the next blog to save you all :)

<3

P.s. i want to send a personal apology on my blog to Rob for burning his hand with a cigarette, at least you have a scar to remember me by