So....having said goodbye to the luxury and calm of OZ we felt ready to tackle the challenges of China. From our experiences so far I think we may have underestimated how many there would be! After the fairly long flight we arrived into Beijing around 8pm. We passed up the option of a very expensive airport pickup and found ourselves successfull...

DAY 1 - 30 June 2005 We arrived at Beijing airport amidst a huge crowd of Chinese waiting to welcome loved ones home, each waving a name-sign, searching for a familiar face. Just as we were lamenting how cool it would be if someone was waving our name I heard a familiar Scots voice shout "Nicola!" - Yay! It was Ron (username irax; on round the w...

Beijing - Jena and Zane's Visit I had the great blessing of a visit from my eldest daughter Jena and her youngest son Zane for four wonderful weeks in February 2007.My grandson was only just over a year old when they came to stay. He has had a struggle with his health since he was born, so it was a brave decision for them to come and visit and ...

After a nice kip and hot shower we headed off to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China. There were five others on our little tour. Definitely good practice for Machu Pichuu. Bob had his first photo op, hopefully I'll be able to download the photos soon. On the 13th we mooched into town had a wander around Tian'namen Square, pondered on...

*Sniff* It was with a tear in my eye that I left UB and Mongolia, and to be honest I was getting a bit worried about the whole toilet situation that I'd heard about in China, not to be sniffed at, quite literally. The train out of Mongolia was a fairly quiet affair, especially compared to the trips that I'd taken with the Vodka Train lot. The jo...

Die erste Woche ist rum, waren immer auf den Fuessen, denn viel gabs zu entdecken. Die Mauer, die gar lang aber auch recht hoch war, die Verbotene Stadt die kaiserlich gross war und der Sommerpalast am See wo es herrlich kuehl war, die Kung Fu-show mit viel Kitch und Seifenblasen. Das echte Peking findet man aber viel mehr ausserhalb konstruiert...

We have arrived safely in Beijing but I am not sure I would recommend Austrian Airlines to anyone. Our first flight left Heathrow one hour late which meant we had the fear for the whole journey as our change over time for the next flight in Vienna was 55 mins. At first we were convinced we wouldn't make the connection and then it looked likely t...

After a sleepless night in cattle class on the train we arrived in Beijing again today hasrdly able to keep our eyes open. Thank you to Natz for the text messages, it helped the night pass more pleasantly. We had been planning to visit the Temple of heaven today but put it off till tomorrow in favour of going shopping. We have a quite silly amou...

Three basic facts: 1. It is just a little fresh - Kim is waging a continuing battle with the elements! I think Beijing might be winning... 2. There are lots and lots of people here and you can always fit another 50 or so on the bus with a well-rehearsed scrummage technique on entry 3. Ask a question in clear, basic English involving the use of a...

Nihau quapies! Zo, nou, we zijn in China hoor. Het geslurp, geboer en geroggel begon al in het vliegtuig. Dat we trouwens maar net gehaald hadden. Hadden natuurlijk kunnen weten dat gaan drinken en karaoke met Engelsen de avond voordat je 's ochtends vroeg op moet om je vlucht te halen niet handig is. Maar dat we echt door alle wekkers heen zoud...

Beijing, nostalgically still called 'Peking' by journalists and wistful academicsC also know as 'Northern capital' which interestingly is exactly what Peking translates to. It is believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world from 1425 to 1650 and from 1710 to 1825. It is now the 17th largest city in the world. After arriving in Beiji...

Hiya family, friends and travelpod fans, First I should probably let you all know that you won't be seeing me back in England on the 6th July now. I have extended my trip and I will now be returning on Thursday 25th September! If I don't run out of money before then! I am currently working at a hostel in Byron Bay driving the minibus from the ho...

Beijing is a crazy city with one million of bikes, which we also tried to ride of course... The food was great even if the menus were almost all only in chinese (hopefully we did not eat a dog or something). Our friend Tuljo, the dwarf is always travelling with us, and because he is the most photogenic , most of our pictures are about him...

We climbed the Great China wall, it was veeeery hot, lots of tourists and souvenir stalls.... But you cannot miss that... There were few opportunities how to come down, you can walk, you can take a cable car or going down on some kind of a slide...

Ok so far we have been very busy trying to fit in all the sights we want to see before we leave next week, after getting used to people and the culture here in beijing i do really like the place and prefere it to Hong Kong in many respects. * The Forbidden City - this is a massive expanse of temples and beautiful carvings and paintings. The area...

Landed in Beijing at 5am and caught a cab to our hostel, The Red Lantern House. It's great. It's an old courtyard building in an old hutong (means alleyway, these hutongs are all through Beijing, almost like slums but not quite). Our room is really clean and has two twin beds and it's own bathroom for 15 quid a night. There is a really pretty co...

It's a 24 hour train ride from Hong Kong to Beijing. The food was pretty good on the train, and everybody we met were really nice. Beijing was fantastic except for the smog. People complain about Houston and LA having bad smog, but they aint got nothing on Beijing. Id be afraid to breath the air if I was an olympic runner. It was so bad our thir...