Dear all After many months of planning the trip is finally underway. Thought we'd go for a bit of a major culture shock by going to Beijing first of all and yes it was a little bit of a shocker but we coped pretty well. Arrived on Sunday 13th and, determind not to go the easy route, we caught the bus to the main train station in Beijing from the airport and walked to our hotel from there. First impressions didn't dissapoint with hundreds of new high rise buildings interspersed with tradional old Beijing (i.e. street stalls, shoe polishers). Dumped our stuff and went to see Tiananmen Square. Pretty much immediately we noticed how we stuck out like a sore thumb due to the fact that we were about a good foot taller than every one else and didn't have black hair or yellow skin. Cue the none stop stares from a lot of locals who basically had never really seen Westerners until a few years ago. These aren't the self conscious stares where if the stared at stares back then the starer looks away. No they just keep on staring. Got used to this after a while and made it to Tiananmen. Pretty impressive if concrete squares are your thing, kept trying to conjure up that image of the student blocking the tank but couldn't figure out at what end of the square that was. A huge picture of chairman Mao overlooks the square and his final supposed resting place (Mao's Mausoleum). Stopped off at what is becoming the new hip and trendy thing to do in Beijing, yes a tea house (whao) and paid (wait for it) 180 Yuan for two (very nice) cups of tea. That's about 15 quid. Feeling refreshed but totally ripped off the next stop was dinner in hotel and bed. Monday we started to feel the effects of jet lag and after refusing to get up at 4am as our bodies wanted we went to a local bakery for breakfast. Bought what we thought were very nice chocolate buns which in fact turned out to be something like chestnut. Still what can you expect for 10p each eh? Went to visit the Forbidden City just opposite Tiananmen square which was most impressive. Built by the Ming and Qing dynastys (check your chinese history books). Fabulous architecture and basically the whole place looks like something out of Crouching Tiger (without the sword wielding flying people). Most of it was constructed in 1460 ish out of wood and is still in good condition today. Left The Forbidden City and got pestered (as was fast becoming a recurring event every five minutes by taxi/rickshaw/beggar/supposed art student/street seller) Also saw a person cycling with a shawl over their heads. Very good. The major thing that we were begining to notice was how much the local Beijingions liked spitting. Now when I say spitting I don't just mean a lttle bit of spittal, nor do I mean the full size mouthwash. What we are talking about here is the real deal. This is the total hock-up-from-the base-of-your-lungs (with sound effects to match) type thing and spit-on-the-floor-right-in-front-of-the-foreigners type gob. Not only that (and Roy Keane amongst others would be proud of this) we also saw proper nasal excrement being blown out as well. And these are the people who think blowing your nose is disgusting. Please. So you can picture the scene as we are walking around dodging the sellers etc whilst constantly trying to avoid the dung sizes heaps of flem. Had dinner in the hotel and went to the hotel karaoke for a laugh. Thinking it would be something like a proper bar with everyone sitting round enjoying the entertainment we were slightly surprised by the odd looking smallness of the place. Just a little bar with Britney playing on the sound system (which by the way, was very eighties). We were chauffered across the corridor to the bar most eagerly, clearly they had seen the size of my beer belly and were thinking they were quids in. Needless to say we were the only people at the bar. Two beers, 75 Yuan. about 7 quid. Then we noticed the rooms just off the side of the bar. Then well dressed women in posh frocks started coming out of the rooms. Me and Aims looked at each other and had the same thought. 'Have we entered some kind of knocking shop?' By now more women were arriving and thankfully not all of them were quite as well dressed. What we deduced was that these rooms had been hired and people used this as a night out with their mates to have fun. Nothing sinister at all. Tuesday - 15th Nov. Got up, hotel breakfast was not too bad although noodles for breakfast is still a bit much. Caught the tube to our stop where we could then catch a bus to the Great Wall at Badaling. One thing we liked about this place was how simple things could be without the use of machines. Ok there's a bit more human interaction and most of what we saw was 'jobs for the boys' but you can't help thinking the old communism thing where everyone had a job has still not gone away. Take the ticket buying at the tube as an example. Buy ticket from person and hand to another person, simple. Contrast this with London, buy ticket from machine and get ticket checked by machine. Find that machine is not working and get pissed off. Travelling around the City you noticed that the whole place is booming and that pretty much all the old buildings wil have been torn down and replaced by modern high rise. Not necessarily a bad thing but if you want to see some of the old Hutongs then you had better get here soon. (Technical bit) Saw a contig wall being installed Chinese style. Simply a guy at the surface with a winch (hand driven of course) pulling up a bucket. Who is filling this bucket 10m down the 1m diameter hole? Only his bloody mate/son of course. I was going to do my bit for IIF but 1) they wouldn't understand me and 2) they wouldn't understand the journey I've been on man. So we get to the great wall after nearly being conned to get into a taxi by someone we thought was a bus driver. Hand signal communications can be so complicated at times. Great wall was well, pretty great. Bought a nice picture after doing a bit of bartering. Still got ripped of though. You've all seen it on the telly before but what you don't get is the size and scale. There are some truly horrific steep bits where it really involves a bit of climbing. The bit we went to was at Badaling which is probably not the most beautiful but you get the idea as to what such an amazing feat of engineering it all was. And the ironic thing? it never worked because the guards were bribed (probably). In the evening we went to see an acrobatics show, ludicrously strong blokes lifting up tiny chinese women (sometimes with their teeth alone) spinning them and themselves whilst riding a bicycle backwards. You know the stuff. Very impressive. And what's more, at the interval the acrobats are only bloody well selling the ice creams and programmes and stuff. Shouldn't they be like limbering up or something? Meal and then bed. Wednesday 16th Went to visit some of the Hutongs (forgot the camera, DOH!) and main market places. The market sellers have a very trained eye. They see you coming and shout "hallo" "you wan buy (insert item) for 50 yuan" Answer is of course no because most of it is tat. reply - "ok how much you wan pay" Nothing we don't want it. And so it goes on from there, stall after stall and sometimes they just wear you down and you buy something. But still you feel good because they are just people trying to make a living. Spend the afternoon walking around a nice park, weather was not too bad, mostly clear skies and about 10 degrees, biting wind though. Off to Hong Kong tomorrow, early flight. We had a great time in Beijing. Everyone was very friendly and we didn't feel threatened at all whilst we were there. Often locals will just come up to you and try their English on you which is fine and you get used to it. More updates to come. Love Stu & Amy.