Hello from Beijing!

The lone explorer is now back out in the big wide world!

The trip started out quite dramatically with mum putting unleaded in our diesel car so then Birdy had to come and collect us from Aylesbury and take me to Heathrow at 100mph (literally!!). I was terrified!

I got my first flight to Vienna which looked from the window to be the most boring place in the world. It was all fields, tiny villages and millions of windmills. They seem pretty concious about the envrionment but nobody seems to live there!!

I got straight on my next flight as soon as I arrived there but unfortunateky was crammed against the window by a HUGE Austrian woman who was very rude and grunted the whole way there. She was constantly standing in people's ways and wouldn't move her arm off the arm rest for me to control my tv so I'd just have to shove her off it!

China is massive, we were flying over empty dessert for hours. Then as we arrived in Beijing it was like landing in a cloud because it is so smoggy. The weather is pretty hot but not as bad as Thailand. The sun can't fight through the smog so you can just see it hidden behind a thick layer of fog.

It has been raining quite a bit but it helps to keep the temperature down, even if its not hot its still very humid so my new fringe isn't hacking it too well and insists on curling!

My friend Terna from Uni met me at the airport and we got a bus to our hostel. The room is fine but the bathroom is gross and doesn't even provide toilet paper, which I have never experienced anywhere so far.

As soon as we dropped off my bags we went to a shopping center called Silk Street which has different floors for different products but all the shops have the same stuff. Its really scary walking past them because millions of women are grabbing you and shouting "Hey Friend, I remember you, come inside and see, good price for you, one more bag!" Its madness!

Everything is fake but it looks really good. The bargaining is mental, they start off with ridiculous prices like 1000yen and Terna will turn back and say I'll give you 50 yen and eventually after 20mins of bargaiang and walking off she'll get the price! I bought some jeans for 90 yen which strated off at 780yen!

After all the shopping I was knackered because I hadn't slept on the plane and so we went back to the room for a power nap. We went for dinner at a noodle fast food chain called Mr Lee, which was pretty good. After that we managed to find a bottle of disgusting white wine (which is rare in China) and we drank that back at the hostel.

Then we went to a really nice area of Beijing where there are loads of bars. You can't walk anywhere in Beijing because it is huge so we have to get taxis everywhere but they are only about a pound for 20mins. We met up with 2 of Terna's friends in a bar and got very drunk. Then at 3am the football came on and Terna got some girl to put random face paint on her in Germany's colours. We didn't stay to watch the game because I was knackered.

In the taxi on the way home the taxi driver was asking Terna about what was on her face and she thought he meant her freckles so she was chatting away about mixed race and thats why she had them, then she was laughing her head off because he tried to wipe them off. Then I told her it was probably the face paint that he was talking about! It was very funny at the time! Terna is really good at Chinese after only 9 months of living here and can chat anyway to anyone.

We got back to the room at 4am, then slept in until 3pm today!! As soon as we got up we went back to the shopping center. It killed us because Terna had a big list of things she needed to buy for her family and you can't just buy something because nowhere has price tags so you have to bargain for ages! We have just got home at 9pm and I am ready for bed now!

Thats all my stories for now, my tours starts in Thursday but we stay in Beijing for 2 days so I'm still here for a bit.

Speak soon xxxxxx