Capital Hotel Beijing

... in that complex that no emperor ever saw.<br><br>The tradition of grandeur continued into the 20th century, albeit in a drab communist kind of way. Tianneman Square is the largest of its kind in the world, a massive stretch of empty concrete. It's dotted with momuments and museums of equal stature - even the famous painting of Mao at the Heavenly Gates must be two stories high. <br><br>And as ...

... us again past Tianammen Square at night all lit up so was very pretty. At the station we lined up with thousands going on other trains and soon we boarded train T27 to Lhasa. We had 2 other Chinese men in our 4 berth cabin but they were only going to Xian and would leave at 8am tomorrow. The train was the same type as the previous one from Hong Kong but the beds are a little bigger I think. We were on our way in the dark at 9.30pm and being late we got into bed quickly and slept quite well.

... Chinese as their menus are written in just that. I have however found a few around the local area which have English descriptions and pictures of the courses. It is of course delicious and very cheap. Last night, I had a chow mien, some curried beef with rice and a beer which came to around 3 quid. My first tourist attraction was the forbidden city, which I did properly on my second day. It attracts thousands of tourists who first line up to have their picture taken ...

... mostly man made, originally including the Round City, palaces, parks, walks, and administrative buildings for the capital Dadu in the Yuan period (1271-1368). The Qings and Mings also worked on the parks, adding many prince's palaces and Imperial niceties, all conveniently enclosed for the use of the privileged. One other thing I really liked was the indigenous housing, clustered in areas called hutongs, basically alleys, or non ...

... cafe where the only option is pork dumplings and chilli...literally nothing else on the menu! Andrew tucks in, yet Im not so convinced with chilli for breakfast! Talking of food Andrew seems to have completely given up on vegetarianism - literally every meal has meat in it so its a useless battle to fight. Later on, as he eagerly gnaws on a spare rib I raise this with him and he points out that they dont seem to have factory farming here....I tease a little ...

... I walked quickly, but no so fast that I would look like a nervous, lost tourist, and made my way there. It was seriously a ten-minute walk through a residential neighborhood, so nothing major, but it really felt good and reassured me that yes, I can travel on my own. I'd gotten so used to having SAS do everything for me for the most part that I didn't know if I'd be able to do it any other way. But, hey, I can. I went into the café and bought some time, which was ...