Hi Everyone,

We are now in Beijing. I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel using their free wifi. That's right I said HOTEL!! Thanks to Claire's parents and their holiday club we have two weeks in a five star hotel. Yes!

Our train ride from Mongolia was pretty uneventful. We were shaing a cabin with an older english couple. John and Jacqui. It was lovely to have some brits to chat to. They were from Devon and had just moved to the New Forest. So for a few hours we could stop talking slowly and using basic english words so we could be understood.

So we've been in Beijing for two days. Getting her priorities right on our first day Claire made me find a cinema playing harry potter. It was bit pricy, especially compare to Mongolia, but it was worth going to see. So our first day was spent in Tianamen square, trying to find an english copy of lonely planet china (which doesn't exist apparently) and watching HP7.

Day two we got up early (for Claire anyway - ps she's in bed so by the time she reads this it'll be too late :) and heading to the forbidden city. Wow that is huge and rammed with tourists, most were chinese, which meant really rammed. We spent all day there and in the end didn't see all of it. I took literally hundreds of photos and we both left shattered.

We headed back and ate at a little street vendors in the local supermarket. I'm loving the fact that we are no longer eating mongloian mutton for every meal.

Finally we decided to have a go in the hotel pool - after all it is the king wing hot spring hotel - it should be good right? Wrong it was freezing! I think I was in for about 15 mins before I gave up and went back to our room. On a plus side though the room is huge and the shower nice and warm.

Hope everyone is well.
Mr P

Ps the photo above is a lie - the smog is soo bad here the sky is a permanent grey!