Been really ill over the past few days but I have fully recovered.

Scams!!!I found out today the 'Tea scam' from a first hand experience. Jonno and I were walking through Tianamen square and were approached by two 'students from Shanghai'. We got chatting and eventually started to walk around town. They wanted to practice their English on us. They seemed really genuine and helped me buy some medicine for my stomach. Eventually I asked if they would like to get a cup of tea and chat for a while so they brought us to this place where we had our own room and we could taste 6 different types of tea...including friut tea, green tea etc...

When the bill came it was 1600 RMB (around 100 pound). I was horrified and thought I would have to pay this sum of money between us. I genuinly thought we had accumulted this sum of money. We asked for a discount and the owner knocked off 250 RMB (20pound). Jonno said he thought it was a scam. It made me think that he was right. We didnt really know what to do. Then I decided to stand my ground and said the maximum i'm paying was 100RMB (8 pound)., I still didnt know if it was a proper scam or not (it was bloody good tea...and i like my tea!!!)

Anyway, they accepted 100RMB from each of us...however the two scammers will get their money back.

It all makes sense now. This scam is rife in Beigjing and it gets alot of people as they don't know any different. This is the funny part...we bumped into Morten and Martina and they were with these other two students. We said fancy bumping into eachother ini the middle of Beijing..well the reason why we bumpoed intop each other is becasue they were getting scammed as well and this must be the location where all the scammers go to where all the dodgy tea bars are.

Oh well.. I learned my lesson at not such a high price.