Thanks for your concerns about the ladyboy and bum bandit situation , at the moment i haven't had to break open the vaseline ! not yey anyway . I've been in China since the start of the month , and coming from Russia and small towns China is like a different planet with wall to wall people everywhere . I started of in Suifenhe a border town where by peoples reactions a don't thing anyone had every seen a westerner , every other person that walked past me stopped and stared at me like i had two heads . I got there first thing and had to wait until late that night for the train to Harbin in northern China . To get in the waitng room at the train station you have to put your bags through airport style scanners , where i had a 20 minute arguement with the women who took my mosquito spray of me because it was flammable and could blow the train up , stupid cow !! Trying to follow the station displays was impossible , as none of it was in English , so had to just follow everyone else close to the time of my train , and hope i was getting on the right one . Luckily i did .

I spent a couple of days in Harbin , hoping to catch the end of the ice lantern festival , where they fill a whole park with ice sculptures , even though by the time i got there most of it had melted . It was still amazing as evrything was huge , with life sized ice castles and buildings . Getting to Beijing was a bit of a problem , as there wasn't a foreign ticket office at the train station , so i had to wade in at the normal ticket office . Which had half the population of China in it . I couldn't get a cheap ticket for 3 days to Beijing , the only way of getting there the next day was to go first class . It still only cost 55 pounds , for a 10 hour trip , in a two berth cabin with private bathroom , flat screen tv and an armchair . All a little different to my 54 berth Russian train .

Arriving in Beijing , first impressions were that the city was mental , with millions of people taking up every bit of space . Found the hostel ok and it's only 3 pounds a night , with litre bottles of beer only 2 yuan a bottle about 15p !!!!! so i have taken full and proper advantage once or twice . The chinese guys at the hostel keep giving us a rice wine thats 57% just sniffing it makes you feel pissed !! theres so many different nationalities at the hostel it's like the united nations , and virtually all of them speak perfect English . I've been here for nearly a week now , so i've seen most of the sight's Tianamen square , Which is the biggest square in the world , which a couple of us went to see on the first night , and couldn't find even though we walked straight past it , Blunkett eat your heart out !! Forbidden City was amazing alltough it was absolutely rammed . Been to a few other temple's , and just walking the streets away from the tourist areas . Down little side streets and alleys it's another world away from the skyscrappers and city life .Seen an acrobatics show which was impressive to . Went to the Great Wall at Simati , Which was amazing , i think i'll struggle to top that for a while . Even though we went on the coldest day in Beijing for this time of year for the last 36 years !!! The wall was covered in snow , which made things hard , as for the most part it was a hike of 5km along the wall , up and down with incline of 70 degree's , but all still well worth it .

On the way back from the wall me and a dutch and chinese guy from the dorm jumped out and a market , that sold taste delicous bugs to eat !! After seeing what was on offer we settle on fried worms with salt , a fried centipede on a skewer complete with legs and head , then we treated ourselves to some small fried scorpions on a skewer , before finishing with the biggest bad ass daddy of a black scorpion , complete with claws tail stinger the lot . Which you eat claw and head first , i couldn't bit it in half so had to put the whole thing in in one go . It took me about 5 minutes to crunch and chew through it , but it didn't actually taste to bad !!!

I'm off to see the Summer palace now , before moving on to Xi'an tomorrow , to see the teracotta warriors . Hope your all ok , cheerio .