Hi Guys,

Long time, no blog. So here's a marathon one.

Beijing: In the next few days in Beijing we visited the Forbidden city, which was beautiful, especially because it snowed. The buildings were extremely colourful but we had to move through fast since it was so cold! We also went to see Mao's lovely embalmed body which was a bit eerie. The temple of Heaven was our next excursion. The best part of this was watching the community dance in the park! Although the buildings were lovely too. The Great wall. Pretty great. Our visas for Vietnam got all sorted out so we were all set to move on.

18 hour train jouney on hard seats.

Harbin: Absolutely freezing. -20 degrees. Saw an ice sculpture exhibition/park. Were nice but exactly what it says on the tin. Then we went to POLARLAND!! The boy! penguins, arctic foxes and wolves, white whales and POLAR BEARS!!!

34 hour train journey on hard seats. Pain in the ass.

Xi'an: Terracotta Army. Definitely what we were most looking forward to in China. And it lived up to all expectations. It was amazing.

36 hour train journey on hard seats. Even bigger pain in the ass.

Nanning: Organised tickets to Vietnam and pretty much got out of there. (It was a nice place though)

Yesterday we arrived in Vietnam!! After a 6/7 hour bus journey. Its a bit manic here in Hanoi due to the build up for Tet (7th) so the streets are filled with markets and tonnes and tonnes of people. We even saw two dancing ATMs.

Today we went to see a giant embalmed tortoise in the middle of a lake in a small palace and the prison museum. Both were equally enjoyable.

Tomorrow we take a trip to Halong Bay which you can see in the picture. Should be good.

Pretty exhausted now so thats it for now.

Bye x