Tian An Rega Hotel Beijing

... learn a lot from that. Then we headed to the Olympic Park to see the impressive stadiums/arenas, with the birds nest being particularly impressive. While waiting for the night train in the hotel after dinner, Rob got a bit bored and decided to touch the water in a fish tank in the foyer which resulted in him receiving a huge electric shock - absolutely hilarious for everyone but him! First night train of the trip (there are 4 in total) and the beds don ...

... centipedes, sheep's penises, and some more normal looking foods. We got a stick of deep fried battered shrimps each, and a coconut, and stood around, hassled and shouted at to come try a penis or two. Because ours were not big enough. And because the girls didn't get this big. What a good sales pitch... However, we were not feeling the least bit coaxed, and carried on taking in the sights and smells and sounds of the market. After this, we parted from the girls, and went our ...

... to get it. By the time that Dad came back with it, people were already boarding, so we had to eat quickly. The way that the seats on the plane meant that nobody was sitting with eachother, but Liam and Aunty Robynne. We didn;t have our own tv screens, which meant that we all had to watch the same movie, but all in all it wasn't too bad. We arrived in Hong Kong and got to our next gate. We had a 3 hour wait in transit.

... It's also addictive and I'm totally looking forward to Van in 2010 and London in 2012. I am planning on marrying several rich doctors to finance this addiction! The people are the other half of this awesome equation. Firstly, the volunteers. The Blue Shirts are generally right on the ball and very eager to help you, no matter what question you ask. Those at the venues have great English. And even though they are battered with ridiculous ...

... the residence. The tables face a screen hung over the entrance. Half way into the dinner, there was a slide show of Qin Dynasty's gardens, costumes etc. It was followed by a performance of singing and dancing, including Peking Opera, Qing imperial dance and singing. The color of the place, of the waitresses' costume, of the performers were bright and dazzling. We've never seen so much gold and red colors in our ...

... wives... what's really a shame is how bad their Chinese language skills still are! Besides Sanlitur, another great place for ex-pats to hang out is Wudaoko. Ask any American exchange student where Lush is, and I'm sure they could tell you. Wednesday nights are Quiz Night, so a bunch of us went there for beer specials and trivia. It was so packed that we couldn't even all sit at a table. I looked around and was surprised ...

... hearing that people were killed here, was this true? His response to me was: "I was not in Beijing at this time." I couldn't understand why he would not answer a question I found to be rather simple and comparatively speaking not THAT terrible. Other students then told me that when they spoke with Chinese natives they neglected to mention anything- I even spoke with Joffre about it and during her story she never once mentioned that ...

Greetings all, So recently I've been having lots of "I love China" moments. I just thought I'd share the feeling with you. They hit me randomly, usually as I'm walking down the street. Thursday I was out in an area called SanLiTun walking to a market to haggle for bad English shirts. Walking down the street I notice all the cars going by and the multitude of bikes and people walking. I see expensive foreign cars and old women on scrap metal bikes ...

... the loveliest collection of bonsai trees and carved rocks we have ever seen. We walked for hours in the rain, never sitting down, and wished we had our pedometers so we could tell you how far. We found our way back to the hotel and had dinner across the street in the neighborhood Hunanese restaurant. Great steamed fish with scallions and wonderful spicy snow peas in a broth. Today we take the mag lev to the airport and fly to Xian for two nights, then Beijing.

... protection from erosion and by night you can hear the wind screech through the gaps as if the witching hour was approaching. I may have walked for three hours without crossing the same path twice, until I got tired of just mooching. I tried to cheat my way into a few temples by offering to pay for that place only but had no luck. I dipped back to my hostel about three or four times in the hope that here would be a train ticket for me. By 4pm ...