Entry 3 of a trip titled: Butler's world tour 2008.

Travels......

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 thei...

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 ho...

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 ...

Well i reluctantly left Nepal for China. Travelling to beijing involved a long trip on three different planes, changing in Lhasa and Chengdu. So after crossing the spectacular Tibetan plateau i spent 20 minutes on the ground in Lhasa airport. I was travelling with a girl call Marieke who I met in the checkin queue in Kathmandu. Arrived at the ho...

Well, my first post is finally here. I have had the busiest few days after arriving here. Where to begin? Our hostel here is in an area about 2km from Tiananmen Square/The Forbidden City which essentially the center of town. The area surrounding our hostel is called the hutong which is made up of very old single story dwellings normally inhabite...

We've discovered fun of shopping the m*rkets in the l*st couple of d*ys. Two of the m*jor ones *re the Silk M*rket which is on * m*in e*st-west ro*d in the city, *nd the Pe*rl M*rket which is to the e*st of the Temple of He*ven p*rk. We h*ve *lso discovered th*t riding *round town is not only * quick w*y to get pl*ces but * gre*t w*y to see Beij...

After a quick flight from Shenyang to Beijing, I found my way to the Downtown Backpackers Hostel near the lakes area of Beijing. My friend was a bit ill so she said we may not be able to meet up that night. I went out to eat at a local eatery on a small hutong(alley) and decided to call it an early night. A couple hours later, I woke up in a col...

Arrived at 5.30am into Beijing. The driver from the downtown backpackers hostel we are staying in had my name on a placard ...that was a nice sight to see as we were wondering how we would know the driver. He didn't speak much English but we followed him to his car and we were on our way. As we pulled up in an alleyway with the road all taken up...