Wowee hasn't there been a giant delay between blog posts I sincerely apologise for this, there have been just all sorts of problem with wi-fi here since I left Beijing for my project city of Kuitun. Thank you all for your patience.

So then, Beijing: It was on the 20th August that I took the plane down from Glasgow to London, leaving my family behind with tears on my face, knowing full well that it was now time to leave my comfortable 18 year nest and venture out further than I have ever done before. Seriously, this may sound corny to some of you, but actually typing this is where I start thinking about my life and what I'm really doing here and with my life and all that has happened to me in my childhood and teenage years. My god, those years are gone.

Ach, look at me getting sidetracked, BEIJING: I managed to meet up with the rest of the Project Trust volunteers in Heathrow and, after flying for 14 hours over to Hong Kong we somehow make it to our plane to Beijing without the help of a PT representative or anything. We arrive at Beijing and meet our representative, Mike, check into our Hostel and proceed with our first banquet where we ate various spicy foods and even duck blood. That was the first moment in China I knew where I had to eat it because of what it was. DUCK BLOOD! It was in a gelatinous cube and all. And funnily enough, it was probably the best thing I ate that night too.

The next day was our proper introduction to Beijing and honestly, probably the best way too. On that day we went cycling around the city and that was the fun moment we learned what Chinese traffic is like (Read = INSANE). You have to basically cycle/drive/walk like you don't care for your life at all and you'll make it out alive. After a while we separated and I, along with 3 others went to a shopping centre.

Now, the only way I can explain this place is if random artists held the place hostage Die Hard style and demanded that they place any art they wanted in there. With their demands agreed to, they immediately proceeded to put statues of 10 tittie humanoid pigs, skinned cows hanging from the ceiling and, their Magnum Opus, a bull farting so hard it leaves a crater and the bull flies at 60 degrees up a man's ass. (Seriously, I would recommend checking out my photos below).

So from the worlds most bizarre shopping centre to something a lot more traditional of China: The Great Wall. Now, I must preface this by mentioning the small detail that we had gone out to a bar the night before to celebrate one our volunteers birthday. I haven't had the greatest experience on getting drunk so the day after, coupled with the jetlag, I was in an awful state of affairs, it's a miracle I even got up the wall in the first place without using the cable car. I was so happy in fact, that I threw up over the Great Wall in pure elation, which I am actually quite smug about because no one else threw up, no one else can say that they threw up on their blog, HA.

Oh, and this is just a little side note for my friends that were with me: you guys honestly were taking pictures all day long and you really didn't take one me throwing up? Dis. A. Pointed in you guys. We got up to the great wall, took a lot of pictures and had a great time. So how do we get down? Walking back down? I think not, dear sir/madam/Parents mortified that we went out drinking on our first night. We went down a toboggan on a great big slide. Now that's how you make ancient architecture fun.

Our third day was one of exploring and it was actually a great day for it because the lightning the night before had cleared up the smog of Beijing. That's something I'm surprised I hadn't mentioned in the blog yet. The Smog around Beijing can get ridiculous. It gives you such a crappy first impression of the city that you can't see a 500 metres at one end of the street (because yes, they really can go on for that long).

On the third day, we were able to see Mr. Blue Sky, we walked by a couple of lakes and it looked great. That was the most calm day which I appreciated. Just walking through Beijing and moving to a hotel where it was only two people to a room allowed us some privacy and a shower we didn't have to share among 6 people. This was a hotel we moved to purely because it was very close to the school we would be learning Chinese at for the next 5 days. Those next 5 days I will talk about soon...

Next time on my blog: The underwhelming Forbidden Palace, the best dinner that I had all week with my firneds, Adrian Brody and a whole lot more. If you have read through this whole blog then well done for sticking with it and I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you very much.