City Central Youth Beijing

So, we woke up on Sunday after a wild party (playing musical chairs/dodgeball/karoke - whilst drinking stupid amounts of Soju - korean vodka and beer as well as having our stomachs full of a hog roast). Needless to say we were all a bit ill and passed out on the bus back to Seoul.

We spent 2 days in Seoul staying in another 'love motel'. There are no hostels in Korea, but the cheapest accommodation is found down side alleys and seeing as all young koreans still live at home (housing is...

Well, just had a bit of an epic. We traveled 4,300km, slept 4 out of the 7 nights on a train, wandered about in -20°C weather and dressed up like eskimos. All to see some ice. Headed to Harbin to catch their snow and ice festival, which is pretty famous. We knew it was going to be a hell of a journey, but figured our chances of ever again voluntarily being in a place during the winter that had a snow and ice festival was pretty slim. So we hunkered down to a hell of a journey to get somewhere...

Wirlwind city tour ....... without knowing a word of chinese

top tip, if you write down the name of the hotel you are going to be staying in try and get it in the local language....the english written word counts for nought with a taxi driver ...the spoken one counts for less unless your fluent. CE First opportinity for my Spanish to come in handy and it was found sadly wanting. Went for a walk around a local supermarket and thought we were never going to get out! Need some food and a beer, niether seem easy to find. BM Thursday 6th: went to the forbid...

Mon 1st - We arrived in Beijing safely after spending 16 hours on a train. We were expecting the train to be quite uncomfortable as we were in a hard sleeper cabin and these were not good on the Vietnam trains. But the cabins were surprisingly good. The beds weren't too hard and there was a fair bit of headroom on each of the bunks. The carriages were open too which was good as the air circulated more easily. We quite enjoyed the train trip! Once we had checked in to our hostel we headed off ...

Will write more soon... Beijing: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 0851&l=c6086&id=512638516 The Olympic Sites: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 0849&l=7a863&id=512638516

Arrived in Beijing after 9 hour flight! Take off was horrific but flight was allll good...had 3 seats! :) Found our hostel so easily, quality map reading skills! Andy tried to order some food and the chinese guy just smiled so we had to leave without food whoops! On day 2 we went to the Summer Palace which was absolutely beautiful however we did get filmed, photographed and stared at by half the people there!!! Cant quite get used to the spitting too...its apparently not impolite here but is ...

Hey We arrived in Beijing on the morning of the 19th on the overnight train from Shanghai. We checked in to the hotel which was two blocks from the Forbidden city and Tienanmen Square and after some breakfast we headed straight on a walking tour. The square was pretty much as expected. It was quite grey and very crowded with thousands of Chinese tourists being herded in large groups by their tour guides and watched carefully by the army and police who seemed quite tense. Our local guide seeme...

Apologies for not posting more often. It is safe to say that our experience here has been FULL. We will try harder to get more posts up by the time we are done.

We have had some amazing experiences.

Let us tell you about a very special place that some on our team have visited for 4 days straight. It is an orphanage for blind children. But please...no pity...these kids are JOYFUL. Unbelievable joy, surprising abilities, absolute diamonds.

The other day, they sang for us...

Went to see the terracotta warriors in Xian and managed to get there before the crowds which was a bonus, the warriors are very cool. Spent the afternoon doing not a lot then we all got the overnight train from Xian to Beijing. Didn't spend a great night trying to sleep in the seats, luckily I'd decided to upgrade to a proper sleeper for the train back. Arrived early in Beijing and we crammed onto a local bus with our big bags much to the consternation of the conductor. We couldn't check into...