Well, we made it to China! We had no problems with the tickets, but we did have a 2 hour delay at Hong Kong while we waited for permission to enter Chinese airspace....a great start! We managed to bypass the con artists trying to charge us 400 yuan for a taxi to the city and find one for just 85....even if he did have to phone the hostel first to find out where it was! Our accommodation is really nice - we booked on the internet so are only paying about half the advertised price which is always nice! We've got our own room and bathroom, and apart from a rather unpleasant smell that wafts up from the drains its pretty nice! Unfortunately, Typhoon Kaemi hit yesterday, and has thoughtfully brought with her some truly atrocious weather. We have seen nothing but clouds and drizzle so far, apart from the torrential rainstorm we had at lunchtime today. BBC weather claims its going to perk up tomorrow, but we have our doubts - we've had to get our jeans and jumpers back out our bags so I can't imagine it perking up enough in time! The big problem with this is that most of the sightseeing things in Beijing are outside. Yesterday we went to Mao's Underground City (which was a little creepy, and nicely flooded!), the South East Corner Watchtower and the Silk Market which were all mostly indoors, although the latter was absolutely terrifying - some of the vendors are so persistent, I wondered if we'd ever make it out! Today (which was supposed to be a better weather day) we had planned for Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City - we made it to the Square but the heavens opened before we could make it into the City, so we went to the Imperial Museum and the Lama Temple instead. These were all very nice, but we really have exhausted the indoors things now! We're going to the Great Wall on Friday, which leaves us tomorrow for the Summer Palace - neither of these are going to be pleasant in the rain! But hey, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, as it would be a shame to end an amazing trip on a damp note!!