Downtown Backpackers Hostel Beijing

After many goodbyes and see you laters, I bid farewell to a glorious and sunny Albion and set my sights on Beijing. The plane journey was pretty standard. Long, boring and uncomfortable. Pretty much like any plane journey, unless you are on of the privileged few to travel in first class (why do they make you walk through the club class with their fancy seats?). After nearly ten hours on the plane, I was pretty happy to arrive in a rainy and grey Beijing. The new terminal 3 (which has only bee...

The long wait is over. Finally a new blog entry by yours truly! I have now spent 5 nights in Beijing and have really enjoyed it. Obviously, the one thing on every one's mind at the moment is the horrific earthquake in the south of the country. Thankfully, it didn't effect Beijing, so I am both safe and well. A couple of day's ago, outside the hostel, there has been a table and TV placed outside where people can make donations to help these poor people. On the television, there are reports of ...

It is always interesting trying to get there. I want to get back out there and enjoy the sites but to sum it up I was the last one to board by flight in San Francisco, my seat was almost given away, my luggage was left in San Fran, and it took me five hours to find my hostel. But I had a beer and talked to some locals and everything is dandy. I am out to look for some crazy food and try not to sweat to much in my only set of clothes.

Chilling out in Siem Reap so going to knock out our China Highlights. We so wish we had stayed longer here as independent travel was so easy and there were hardly any westerners....and of course the food and some amazing sights! Beijing An amazing, massive city that was actually very clean and not too (relatively) polluted. Obviously a few olympics clean up programs are still in place as the city is exceptionally clean. - Olympic Village was great. they are still building the legacy forest pa...

From Singapore to Beijing and what a contrast. Where Singapore was spotlessly clean, Beijing was dusty. Where spitting endured a fine in Singapore, it was an art form in Beijing. But my first encounter with China had me intrigued. I was staying at Downtown Backpackers and was in a three bed dorm, which for the first night I had to myself. The room was sparse, with whitewashed walls, but clean and the bed comfortable and en suite had plenty of hot water, although you needed your own toilet pap...

I thought it's time I wrote you guys a blog, but I'm still pretty tired and didn't sleep well last night, so bear with me.

We arrived half an hour early yesterday, which was just as well, as everyone had to be inspected by quarantine officials. The landing was smooth, although I was almost amused to see the two guys sitting diagonally from me reviewing the emergency card, and then excitedly pointing out the emergency exit nearest us. As the plane went into the final descent, they both ...

I highly doubt that the anonymous person who wrote the lyrics to that song was thinking of China, although he may as well have been. Last night, self and two others from the hostel agreed to meet in the evening and go out to Donghuman Yeshi Night Market for a real taste of China. Located near Wangfujin shopping district, the Night Market is composed of a long row of vendors, all lit up by the ubiquitous red paper lantern. Lying out front of each stall are the vendors' individual wares, carefu...

I wrote this a couple of days ago, but haven't had a chance to post
it. When I come back, I can look at photos and remember what I did -
the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, etc etc. It's not always so easy,
however, to remember the smells, sounds, tastes and emotions of a
trip. I'd like to share a little of that with you guys.

One of
the best things about my hostel is its location. Rather than being
situated near a bunch of Western-style, clean, sanitized hotels (don'...

5:30am we landed in Beijing. We were met by Martin from Downtown Backpackers and headed for the hostel along with another Irish girl from Middleton. After 30-40 minutes we pull up this narrow alley like road and stop at an intersection of two little old streets. The first thing we saw was the hoardes of men digging trenches in the road old shovels and pic axes and drawing the rubble with wheelbarrows that looked to me like they should be in a museum. I was immediately mesmerised and intrigued...