Day 18

Steve and I found a mobile phone shop and bought new sim cards. A cheap phone in China will be useful in booking accommodation and keeping in touch with each other. We're planning to stay in China for one month, so we'll do this (but local sim cards) in all the places we stay for this length of time.

1 Rammed roads on the way to Ti'anenmen Sq

October 1st is China's National Day. China has more people that any other country. Beijing is its Capital city, and all this means that Ti'anenmen Square on October 1st was only ever going to be one thing - rammed. It didn't disappoint and we were milling around taking it all in. I really didn't expect the locals to be so curious with us but we had people coming up wanting photos with us and their kids etc. It's not like we're the only westerners there either. But, it's a good vibe so we don't mind.

2 Carnage!

After the square we went looking for food. The first restaurant we found didn't have enough big tables so we were moved to a private room in the back. The menu was a nightmare to understand but we ordered a good amount for our group. While we were waiting, two large vessels holding boiling water were brought in and placed in the middle of the table. The water was kept at boiling by a self contained coal fire in the centre of the vessel. When our food arrived it was all raw - suprising, but our waitress demonstrated what we needed to do to cook our food. We spent the next 40 minutes tossing raw meat and veg into the water then hoiking it out with chopsticks and dipping it in satay sauce. It was a lot of fun especially with varying chopstick proficiency on display. The food was great though and the bill for five people was less than two pounds each!

3 In Tianenmen Sq

4 Ti'anenmen on National Day

5 Group photo (kind of)

6 More of Ti'anenmen

7 A Temporary Floral Display

8 Kasja and the hotpot

9 A Man with a kite

91 His kite

92 Everyone's impressed