We touched down in a very smoggy Beijing at 10.20am local time. We were over an hour late due to Russia deciding to close their airspace...we had to circle over Russia for an hour! Didn't matter too much, I just laughed my way through Cyrus and Grown-ups - good films. The plane food was pretty good too. We had chicken curry, but then Therese got oil all on her pants, then spilt handwash on her pants, then the guy next to her spilt brandy everywhere!

Caught the Airport Express Train into Dongzhimen, centre of Beijing, took 20 mins and only cost £2.50 each. Then caught the subway to the Chongwenmen hotel which was only 20p!

After checking in, we went for a short walk for some water. It wasn't what I expected. Very westernized - McDonalds, Pizza Hut, H&M, Mango. And the streets are huge! It's a bit dicey crossing the roads - green man on a zebra crossing apparently doesn't mean you can cross! Cars beeping everywhere, bicycles flying at you - it's chaos! We just follow the locals.

So far it's been really easy to get around this place. And the people seem very friendly in some respects - one guy helped us with the subway map, another helped translate when we was buying a subway ticket and the clerk woman was ranting in Chinese to us, and another let Therese sit down on the busy tube with her heavy backpack on.

Had a sleep for a few hours, then went for another wander and to get some food. There's loads of chain restaurants - western ones like McDonalds and Pizza Hut, then Chinese ones. We ate at McDonalds. Just kidding, we went to a proper locals restaurant. Had this massive bowl filled with rice and chicken (I think) noodle stir-fry, Therese just had a vegetable one, and a beer each. They put down a couple of dishes with weird little jelly things in. One of them looked nice and fruity - tasted like sick. They gave us some tea too, which wasn't too bad. Food was lovely and only cost 300 Yuan (about £2.50) each! Think the staff were taking the piss out of us saying "beer" too - probably the Yorkshire accent they found funny.

After that, we treat ourselves to a Haagen-Dazs. We had one scoop each and it cost more than our full meal at the restaurant! Last time we do that.

(we're about a week late posting this as only just found WiFi. The blog for the 9th won't go up until tomorrow, so it will go 8th Oct, then 10th Oct 11th Oct. So check later for 9th!)