Bright lights, Big City

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We have just arrived in Beijing, we landed about 3 hours ago at the new swanky terminal 3. It was a bit like a ghost town as I think its been set up to coincide with the olympics, its not in much use at the moment and most of the staff were in training-very impressive building though. Driving into Beijing city was a crazy ride and what was even more bizarre was the sight of the sun glazed-over by the smog, it looked quite earie and made me quickly realise how bad the pollution is. Thats our experence of Beijing so far, more soon...

Hong Kong was very impressive in a metropolitan kind of way, very much a cross between Manhattan and canary wharf with equal measures of each countries influence, although the US influence seems to be taking over, every street corner has a 'seven eleven' where you can buy pretty much all the same confectionary as we could in New York. There is obviously also a very strong Chineses precence with various street markets and cheap restaurants everywhere, when we arrived we ate at a small restaurant around the corner from our hotel, it was good quality food at the reasonable price of 8 pounds for 3 dishes including a beer each. On Wednesday we set out on foot to explore the city and later headed over to Kowloon on the mainland to visit the night market. I am gonna try and upload some photo's now, so hopefully you guys can a picture of what its like.

I just want to mention a few other things about Hong Kong whilst I have a decent internet connection. At every open space (there are loads dotted between the buildings) I noticed 3 or 4 different species of butterfly, one was as big as a childs hand, they were mesmerizing as they fluttered to and fro. I also saw two large eagles, not sure what type, one was gliding along the harbour, the other around a sky scraper, it seemed strange to see such wildlife in the heart of the city but I guess there's plenty for them to eat. The pigions have a pretty raw deal, not only do the locals eat them but they have other birds preying on them to! The public transport is very impressive aswell, when waiting for the tube we got to watch screens instead of tatty bilboard posters whilst waiting. The public notices around the stations also drew our attention, they had a slight big brother quality to them, one read 'wear a mask if you are ill or have a cold. Don't spread germs' and the other read 'eat well, be fit, be happy.'

Wow, didn't realise I'd written so much, better sign off now. I'll let Helen do the talking next time.

Steve xx

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Comments

[Em]

YAAAAAAAAY - your safe you landed it sounds fantastic, jealous! Please please please get a pic of the lovely butterflies for me. Good to hear it's going well so far. Is Helen coping with the heat? xxx

[tanya]

hi guys i love those pictures it looks amazing wish i was there too. im glad to here u r having fun not missing england to much!!!. take care speak to u soon xxx