We arrived in Hong Kong in the morning but after immigration, customs and further train journeys etc etc we didn't actually check into our hotel untill about 2pm. The hotel was pretty posh actually but I was most impressed by the fact that they had British plug sockets!!! and the drive on the left and we had some decent tv channels so Paul was happy....The first thing Paul does when we arrive anywhere is literally get into the room throw the bags down anywhere ...

On our return visit to Shanghai we didn't really do much worth mentioning, except going to the 'world famous' acrobatics show which turned out to be great fun. The acrobats were all talented enough to pull off all the stunts and wow the crowd, but there was still a sense that everything could go horrifically wrong and that we could have ended up witnessing a mass maiming. Top stuff.Next on the agenda was the short 23 hour train ride to Guilin to begin the rural l...

Our train journey to Xi'an lasted 12 hours but, disgusting toilets aside, it wasn't as bad as we thought it'd be. After checking into our hotel, which I'm pretty sure is the sort of establishment which rents rooms by the hour and whose clientele is mostly "lonely" businessmen, we wasted over an hour of our lives visiting the drum and bell towers in the centre of town. There was nothing remotely interesting in either of them, all they had were a couple o...

The Great Wall.... It was an early start and a long coach journey to the Great Wall of China! When we got there it was absolutely boiling as it was about midday. We climbed to the top of the wall which completely knackered all of us and I was about ready to give up just after that climb! The views were amazing, just like the pictures you see, absolutely stunning and its so much longer than you imagine, it seems like it goes on forever. So after taking it all i...

We arrived in Beijing on May 19th at about 1am, very sleepy. The following day we decided to explore the Forbidden City, when we arrived at Tianaman Square there were thousands of people everywhere, we were a little unsure at first what was going on and then realised that it was actually the first day of the "three days of national mourning for the earthquake victims" so after the 3 minutes silence we thought we better stay out of the way, the Chinese ...