Early rise for our day of flying! We went from kathmandu to Lhasa to Chengdu to beijing. After check-in at Kathmandu we went through several security checks. If the machine beeps they frisk you, if the machine doesn't beep, they still frisk you! Same with our bags, they searched them a couple of times. When we walked out of the terminal to the plane we were asked to identify our liggage out of hundreds of bags scattered across the tarmac and getthe guy to put it on the correct plane! When we landed in Lhasa we were escorted through the terminal to a waiting room before we were ushered back onto the same plane. By this point I had counted 4 forms we each had to fill in, all asking for the same information, passport number, visa number, address in China blah blah blah!

So next we flew to Chengdu, on arrival Chelsea spots KFC so we check in our bags (yes they did show up!) and grabbed some food. Then we boarded the next plane to Beijing. Watched Monster In Law, Chelsea thought it was highly entertaining and had a run-in with a local d***head that had no respect for women and knocked Chelsea over.

Flying into the City was amazing. It was about 9pm and it looked like a black canvas had been scattered with a million diamonds, emeralds and rubies sparkling up at us. We felt a huge relief when we spotted our bags on the carousel and an even bigger relief when we saw a huge sign CHELSEA - Lotus Hostel. It took about 45mins to reach the hotel which is really nice and clean and the staff are really friendly and speak excellent english. We have a mixed dorm, sharing with Mia and Jo who were very nice and friendly when we arrived! So we sat in the courtyard chatting to them and some other guests before heading to bed.

Monday 21st

Chelsea and Mia had a nice lay-in till around midday then the four of us headed out for a fun-filled day out in Beijing! We had to run for the bus, missed our stop and then jumped on the train to a district full of shops and bars. We wandered around a little market where they had live scorpions on sticks (like kebabs - yuk!!). We went to a famous restaurant Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. We aren't sure what came over Chelsea but she ate duck liver, pork, battered prawns and actually enjoyed it (except the liver!) Had some wine, duck and pancakes, duck soup finished off with some watermelon. We then headed to 'Bar Street' and literally went from bar to bar (very Paulo Nutini!!) drinking some local beer and playing the countries game. Each bar had different entertainment, singers, poledancers and we ended up at a bar with a live band playing. We kind of gatecrashed their performance and Brad sang Lionel Richie songs and Chelsea finished the set with a drunken redition of Britneys Baby One More Time - classic!! Fell into a cab which took us back to the Hotel where we drank beer in the courtyard till around 3:30am

Tuesday afternoon we wake with a hangover!