Mao Town

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We flew in to Beijing after about 7 hours sitting on the tarmac in Hong Kong or circling south of Beijing due to a thick fog. Luckily we'd been upgraded to Business class so it wasn't as unbearable as it could have been. After the first day though it cleared up and was nice for walking around.

Beijing was very different to what we expected and has wide streets, low buildings and heaps of space. It was cold though, getting down to below zero most nights so we have had good use of our winter woollies. We checked out some cool palaces, temples and Tian'men Square which was a massive space full of families and tourists and it was hard to picture how it would have been on that fateful day in 1989.

People don’t speak English as much here so we had a few interesting meals where we relied picture menus, pointing and some luck! Some of the menus had English descriptions but they were not all that helpful with phrases like “A goat walks in the mountains”.

The tour group we are with are mostly Brits with a Dutch couple and German couple. Some of the guys are actually from Preston which is where we are heading to stay with Bern and Shaun when we arrive and about the same time they'll be driving from Alice through Mount Isa which is weird. Everyone is very cool and enjoys a beer (or seven) so we've had a blast going out or staying in and playing cards or dice.

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Photos

The not so summery Summer Palace
We headed off with some of our tour group and managed a train and bus with sign language and pointing at the phrase book!

Dinner
Pretty much all our meals were like this... big beers and a lazy susan banquet!