welcome to china!

---

Hello again all!

My last two days in New Zealand were spent in Wellington where I spent over 5 hours in the national museum and had quite a few coffee and cakes. Oh and I did some laundry. Pretty much it!

On the Wednesday (20th June) I flew from Wellington to Auckland and Auckland to Beijing. I arrived in Beijing at 7 am on the Thursday morning.

I was in Beijing for a week and left on the following Wednesday for Shanghai. While I was in Beijing I went to the Olympic Stadium, Tian'anmen Square, the National Exhibition Arts Centre, the Temple of Heaven, the Silk market, the pearl market, the forbidden city and a water park in the old Olympic swimming pool. I met some great friends in the hostel where I stayed when I got to Beijing, and we had a couple of great nights out!

Last Sunday I joined another tour group who I will go around the rest of China and Hong Kong with. We are a group of 14 people between the ages of 19 and 29 and we all seem to be getting along really well.

We got to Shanghai three days ago on the sleeper train which was certainly an experience. Whilst in Shanghai I went to the museum, shopping centre, an acrobatic show, the French concession and up the two highest bars in Shanghai- on the 87th and 92nd floors of hotels. They also happen to be the second and third highest bars in Asia with the highest in Hong Kong so a few girls and I have a plan to try and get there when we're in Hong Kong.

Last night I was on the sleeper train from Shanghai to Xi'an. I had about four hours of sleep as the Chinese kids saw fit to get up at 4:30 am and start chatting as loudly as they possibly could. And they turned on the TV in our cabin which was some kind of chinese comedy show. Not fun that early!

Other than that though it has been a good day. We checked into our new hotel and had a wander around Xi'an and its shops. We also went for a 13km bike round on top of the wall that used to run around the outside of the city, but now lies well within it. Tomorrow we plan to visit the Muslim Quarter, a temple and a mosque and the following day we shall be visiting the terracotta warriors. After that we go on a river cruise at the Three Gorges and then go on to visit Yangshuo. I will be in Hong Kong next Tuesday and will be flying home next Wednesday.

Sorry I haven't been able to upload any photos with this entry but I'm on a computer in my hotel's lobby and it is running particularly slowly at the moment so it would just take too long.

I miss you all very much and look forward to seeing you after my adventure is done xxx

---