Pinch punch 1st day of the month! :-) Hallo everyone...Cathal & I are finally in China! It's been an exhausting journey so far...flying from Blighty into Helsinki then Beijing. I felt like a celebrity on the plane..stared at,badgered, but had one reliable entourage member at hand :-) and 14 hours later,we made our way to the Double Happiness Hotel.

Like Esther says, it was no picnic getting here.. First on the plane people were playing musical chairs to get a look at Esther's hair, I kid you not!The first occupier of the chair next to Esther was almost certainly the landlady from the movie Kung Fu Hustle! When we finally did land it wasn't especially easy getting here since in my wisdom I didn't print off the address in Chinese! Well done me.. Still, several phone calls and taxi rides later we made it! We're now happily sipping beer in the hotel bar :-)

We had planned to get out and start to visit some of the amazing sights..wishful thinking or just too keen. Because we just had to catch up on some sleep, we were just too shattered! I didn't get much sleep on the plane,what with my new found celebrity status..god knows what they'll make of me in old country 'Guilin'..

So.. The adventure starts tomorrow! Early start (no sarcasm at the back) at the Forbidden city, then on somewhere else in the afternoon.. We'll be back with photos, tales and much, much more tomorrow.. Bye for now!

C&E