Xie Xie..

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..is the only Chinese we know. (thank you)

Hello

Just a quick one to let everyone know we've arrived in China safely. After a few initial problems involving vanishing buses, garbled phone calls, a subway, some well meaning yet incomprehensible locals and several big long treks along the same massive road, losing our hostel address etc. etc. we found our lovely hostel and have had our first chinese meal out. We're battling through the sleeplessness to go visit a frozen lake (it's snowing and about minus 8 at the moment) to push chairs around (?) apparently. Who knows.

More to come...

Now's more. The lake was massive and amazing, completely frozen. We pushed ourselves around with screwdrivers while sitting on a two tiered sled thing, racing Chinese families - it was fun. But the cold puts a stop to anything pretty quickly, and we were still fairly jet lagged. After a sleep we ventured out for some warmth and drink, and happened upon a bar/cafe in our hutong (an old Chinese maze of courtyards and alleyways, where we're staying) owned by some French people. We met up with some Danes who've also just started their travelling - seems like Beijing's a pretty popular starting off point. We're all new to Beijing so decided to arrange to meet up and go to the Summer Palace today. It's huge - everything in China appears to be huge - and had an even massive-er frozen lake which was quite eerie and beautiful. I could go on about the history of the place, like saying it was created as a refuge for the royal families during the searing hot summers etc. but I won't, partly because we didn't make use of any tour guides, and partly because most of the time we were lost. We struggled on to try to find a street that was created as a replica of one somewhere else in China, in search of the food the guidebook so clearly promised... but were denied. January is a 'slack' season for tourism in China, and while things get cheaper, everything seems to shut up shop.

We've booked to go on the Great Wall tour tomorrow, which involves a 6.40am start, a 4 hour trek (?!) and a couple of 3 hour long bus journeys, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We're also planning on visiting the Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant near the Forbidden City - we havent actually got into central Beijing yet, and we're running out of time. We booked our train to Shanghai which leaves on Monday at 8pm, which lasts for 13hours. We planned to visit the terracotta warriors in Xi'an, but what with Chinese New Year and the horrific (allegedly) travel delays it brings with it due to millions upon millions of Chinese making their way back home, we thought it best to get South as quickly as we can so we don't miss our Bangkok flight. I think Amy's feeling the cold a bit too, and we're hoping that once we get to Shanghai we can take our thermal socks off.

We're going to venture into the nightmarket in our district (Dongcheng) tonight, see what all the fuss is about, eat some weird stuff. China strikes me as a very safe, peaceful sort of place, where you can go from walking down a bustling, neon lit street, take a right and find yourself in complete silence in ancient little alleyways. We're somewhat of a novetly here I think, we were the only non Chinese using the subways. But its good because they get to try out their English on us, which pretty much extends to Hello and How are you?... but then that's better than our Chinese, so fair enough.

This probably isnt a very informative entry, but all this touristy stuff knackers you out. I'm going to badger Amy into writing an entry one of these days, but for now I'm going to join her and have a little nap.

xx

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