Saturday 11th

After a tearful goodbye we finally boarded the big emirates airbus to Dubai. The sevice and the food on the plane was great and there was even free alcohol to robs delight :) we were not too sure about our fellow passengers though for example we had an arab lady with a tash bigger than Pete Crompton's lol and her elderly husband was bald and had a ginger beard!.

We had a few hours wait at Dubai before boarding another seven hour flight to Beijing - by this point we were very tired. Luckily upon arriving we had no problems going through imigration and we were picked up by a vey happy China man waving a Leanne and Rob sign he could obviously spot us a mile off in the mass crowd of Chinese people.

Sunday 12th

We got to our hotel no problem but the roads and traffic are very different from England. They like to use their horns alot and waiting for the green man and zebra crossings mean nothing over here lol... its every man for himself.

The hotel room is lovely and clean and the staff speak some English and are very friendly :) On our first night we freshened up and headed out to explore the surrounding area. We went on the hunt for fresh milk which failed miserably, we returned with a small carton of UHT milk, Luckily Rob brought some Yorkshire tea bags. Then it was an early night to recover from the jet lag.

Monday 13th

We arose from our pits at 11.30am only because we had a knock on the door from house keeping otherwise it would have been later. We had a stroll to a nearby mall for breakfast and we had crossaints and coffee. We then headed to a local Catholic Church which was lovely. And then back to the hotel to write this blog. We meet our group tonight and are due to go out for dinner with them :)

Hope all is well back home, feel free to write on our message board

Zaijian! (Goodbye)