Hellooohah,

Ok so I had figured I'd have written something on here yesterday because there really is so much to talk about, but apparently culture shock and dumplings makes me really sleepy. I only really have the energy to type thoughts up now because I'm trying to watch How I Met Your Mother online and the damn connection is so bad it's taking ages to buffer and if I leave the computer someone else with steal it so aaaaaaaah.

So it was a pretty painful goodbye in Auckland but I guess everything balances as leaving Auckland was actually incredibly painless! SOMEONE managed to get to the airport with all her important documents, having chosen her seat online (window, baby) and with a lot of time to spare. Father, be proud! Maybe a little too much time to spare...but hey I did *not* miss that flight! Obviously the universe could sense I was missing dutch people because sat next to an incredibly enthusiastic (even by my standards) dutch girl in the lounge, who was wearing seven layers of clothes because her luggage was also way over the allowance. She also had 2 big 'hand luggage' bags..and was holding a massive marketing textbook ("I thought I'd just carry my heaviest book in case they weigh my bags"). She was crazy! But very amusing, plus I felt so well packed with my teensy backpack and clutching 'the-fattest-kiwi-in-the-world' aka. Jasper.

Once on the plane, I felt even more awesome because I'd brought my blanket with me aka. THE SNUGGLIEST WARMEST THING EVER and so I literally snoozed for 13 hours. It was amazing.

Landed at 7:24 Beijing time, prepared to be blown away by the utter Asianess of everything. Yeah it was pretty much just a normal airport, although there was a squat loo in the toilets...I'd had to fill out a form saying that there was absolutely no way I could have H1N1, so decided that declaring my very running nose was not a good idea. So I actually went to the toilets to bung up my nose before heading through the health check desk, imagining some sort of nasal examination could take place, or that I would give it all away by sniffing....but seriously, china is so boring they just took my sheet and I felt like a fool :-(. Although, I did have to walk through a temperature detecting gate which was pretty cool. MY LUGGAGE ARRIVED SAFELY YAY. MY TRAVELLER'S CHEQUES CONVERTED SAFELY YAY. Now how the hell do I get out of here?? That took about 15 minutes to work out...but in my defence there was a large Indian family who had equally no idea. Luckily, crazy dutch girl had told me how she'd almost forgotten to get the name of her hotel written down in chinese so that she could give it to the taxi driver. In a kind of 'god how I could I almost have been so stupid' type manner. So uhhh yeah, I managed to get the lady at tourist informatiion to write that down for me because OBVIOUSLY that had not occurred to me! Even then though the driver seemed to have no clue what she'd written down and after about 2 minutes of him making strange sounds (yes, ok, chinese words) and me just pointing steadfastedly at the piece of paper, he rang the hostel and we drove off.

Interlude: seriously, I did warn you that if I unleashed my writing beast you would learn EVERYTHING about what I'm up to, I'm not going to filter out the boring stuff!

So the drive into the city was hardly nice...

[real life interlude - there is an incredibly annoying chinese girl wailing - yes not singing - wailing like a thoughtful yet tuneless bird in the room right next to this. She will not stop. She will not change the "tune". I think she is friends with the other chinese cleaners who sing outside my room every morning at 8am...oh wait, they're with some annoying american dude. And the singer is entering this room. TURNING UP MUSIC]

....unless a sky that looks permanently cloudy, high rises and occassional rows of the most pitiful and dead looking trees you can imagine, is to your tastes. They were really more like yellow twigs - it's really shocking to see the effect the air out here has on plant life - imagine what unseen damage it's doing to the inhabitants?

Getting into the actual city centre wasn't much more exciting - the shop fronts that were westem looked like the set of a movie in the 90s and the one's that were chinese just looked [THE WOMAN IS STILL WAILING, KILL ME NOW] very tired. But it got more exciting when we turned off in Shijia Hutong which is where the hostel is. It's not a proper hutong, just a narrow street where cars, people and bicycles all have a complex relationship with the right of way. The hostel itself was making a real effort to look colourful and 'chinese' and other than the taxi driver taking a 15 yuan tip without asking, checking in was nice and easy.

I was pretty impressed by the room; with no idea what to expect I was expecting some horrific filthy hovel, but I actually got a duvet that got washed and a plug point next to my bed (which did not happen in NZ!) and although the mattress is more just material over boards, I've been told it's good for chinese standards! Other than the smell of man BO (which I was soon informed by the man in question, was due to his not washing for 5 days on a train from Siberia...nice. Although 3 showers late and the room still smells a bit bad!) I was pretty content. I was also pretty ready for a snooze to delay dealing with the fact that china was a strange place aka. scary and that I was on my own again aka. scary, but thankfully BO man who will from now on be known as Alvoro (he's spanish although he has a massive ginger beard. I'm only taking a hazard at the name - you can't ask more than twice!) said he was going to get breakfast. And I was hungry.

Well, I bet you can't WAIT to find out what I actually ate, but I really am so exhausted and giving up on How I Met Your Mother ever loading, so I'm off to read in bed. Have to get up early tomorrow as Mao's tomb is only open 8am-12am. I guess he doesn't like to be disturbed after lunch...

If the detail in these post is annoying (it's useful for me so I remember everything, but really not essential) then feel free to leave abusive posts and the next will be more concise!

Love to a) anyone who reads this b) family c) special people (who know who they are)

Emma/Ems/C.D

<3