Thrown in the Chinese deep end!

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Time= Unkown
Location=Times Holiday Hotel

Well I would be lieing if I said the trip has not been tiring but its been much more staight forward than expected!

We met at 2.30, at terminal 2. Our back packs full- well Emmas full- our families all gathered in black to mourn or going. Check in was straight forward and after hugs, tears, and more warnings to not get raped (cheers for the advice nan), we set up the escalator to begin our adventure.

Maybe a sign of things to come when we are stopped at baggage control, Emma is frisked- which she doesnt complain about- and my bag is thoroughly swabbed- i swear i dont know how the cocaine got in there! But all was forgotten when we were kicking our feet up, whacking a chill in the executive sweat courtesy of mama!

A few bevies later and we'r bording the flight to Amsterdam, with Antnia Valencia stood infront of us in the queue (if I would have had another drink I may have told him how shit he played the other day, however I didnt). The flight was good and the transfer straight forward and hoping our bags made it too we boarded our China flight. No lie, this was the best flight Ive ever been on, KLM are the bomb (I learned not to say that on a plane!). All drinks were free, food was lovely if a bit strange- ravioli for breakfast?- and tvs in the back of the seats! Absolute Dream!

We landed a little late, passport control was thorough to say the least, and we didnt have to wait too long for our baggage, despite Emmas being right near the end and her panicking! We found our little chinese drver with his 'Luke Nich-olas Fellone' sign and hopped in the car. It was a sweaty ride with it being ridiculously hot, no complaining though! We snaked our way through the mad streets with the impatient drivers who go through red lights and beep you when your crossing coz your in he way- does green mean stop here too for pedestrians? Im confused!

Getting out at our downtown hotel, which is in an incredible location, we realise that the language barrier is going to be worse than anticipated considering it takes an hour to check in. The hotel is ok, it does the job apart from the toilet being broken! Beng knackered we didnt explore much today, we walked into a main shopping district just down the road from th hotel , full of posh shops like Armani and Gucci, which are still overpriced where ever you go it seems! The streets were bussleing and we saw quite a few English speaking tourists on our walk. Theres a really cute market street that we briefly went down where we were hounded, which Im keen to revisit and try some of the street food!

After buying water which cost £1.80 for 2 big bottles ad 2 bottles of Sprite and trying for an hour to buy a phone card to use the payphones, we returned to the hotel to sleep- or try to in my case! We have a long day tomorrow with the tour starting. Great Wal here we come!

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