Beijing - finally!

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Hi,

We are now in Beijing. Got here yesterday morning and spent most of yesterday walking around, getting our bearings and visiting Tiananmen Square. On first impressions Beijing seems a lot more open and cleaner than Shanghai.

Our hostel is very nice and we have a double room for half price (not quite sure how we managed this!). It's just as good that it is nice because Paul will be seeing a lot of it today as he is not very well. I think he may have a bit of heat exhaustion because it was very hot yesterday and he burnt a little bit. So he feels quite wishy washy today and needs rest. So I'm playing nurse and forcing him to drink gallons of water!

We ate very yummy Peking duck last night and then took a look around a night food market. I'm glad I'd already eaten because some of the things on display were almost emough to put me off food for life! There was a variety of skewered delights on offer, including snake, scorpions, star fish, animal organs, snake skin!!!, lizards etc etc. It was quite disgusting but very interesting.

Anyway, this blog will have to left short. Much to my annoyance we have to pay for using the internet in this hostel now and I haven't got much cash on me. By the way, we are having problems accessing hotmail at the moment so I've set up a yahoo account. It's the same as my hotmail name but @yahoo.co.uk

Will try and post again soon,

Laura

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Photos

Beijing Food
Skewered live!! They were moving! eew

Comments

[Mum]

How many times have i got to tell you to wear a hat when its sunny.Your worse than a 5 year old.UP THE MARINERS. 1/2 THE TEAMS INJURED FOR SAT.

[Big Bro]

Revolution
Good to here from you again - looks cool I am dead jealous I'd love to see all that stuff! I will be staying at chez elephant at the week end - can you recommend it or will a bus shelter be a better bet? Let me know - anyway how can the internet be expensive - spend some money it must cost about 1 yuan for a whole day judging by the amount you keep telling us it costs - If you don't get my card - Happy Birthday sis hope you big it up chinese style - me and Katie will celebrate your birthday as well this weekend - will relay this message to Mum and I am going to print out the pictures for her aswell.

[Hotel Manager]

Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday Laura, have a fantastic day, well to be honest seeing as you're not working and just dossing about travelling and seeing some of the most wonderful and interesting things every day (i.e. the premiership on chinese tv), every day should feel like a birthday! Eight months til New York baby! See you there.

[Lou and Han]

Happy Birthday!!!!
Hey Telecom Italia!Happy Birthday Hun , hope your doing something exciting, make paul flash his cash!The photos are looking amazing, we're so so jealous in boring miserable wales. Counting down the days till we finish uni. Have fun and take care. Love to both of you. Speak to you soon Lou and Han xxxxxxxxx

[First born girl]

Happy Birthday!!!
LAURA it's your birthday, come on and have some fun...LAURA! Where are you?...etc (can't remember any more lyrics from the classic birthday record). Hope you're having a great day and not watching football (yawn). Paul - hope you're feeling better today. Mark thinks that suffering from heat exhaustion is a bit wussy but I think that your mum's right, you should have worn a hat, silly boy! I'm very happy to see that Laura is wearing her amazingly versatile bandana thingy. And are those socks that I can see with your sandals Laura? Have some dignity girl! Oh, and can we stop all this boring football stuff now? and the misogyny THOMAS - it's all very boring. World Cup will be rubbish without Wales there anyway. Happy birthday again Laura, love you loads xx Love to you too Broughton x

[Little Brother!!]

Wayne who?
The terrible news of Wayne Rooney’s injury has been significantly marred by the fact that Michael Reddy is out for what will be the biggest football game this summer. UP THE MARINERS!! By the way hope you two are having an amazing time because I know I would be!! PES isn’t quite the same either!! Everything looks so cool, which can't really be said for you puckering up in that picture?

[Little Brother!!]

Happy Birthday Laura!!
Oh yer and almost forgot! Happy Birthday Laura!! You know you would rather be out spending your birthday in Grimsby with all the chavs and chavettes tho!! We love it! Its a shame your not here though, I would have liked to have given you a birthday hug! lol - I think im drunk!!

[Little brother and General!!]

Drew 1-1 - were up for the playoffs against Lincoln!! We will send a report on the fantastic sites of Lincoln after next weeks massive game!! The UP THE MARINERS CAMPAIGN continues... We cud be in Cardiff soon.. We love Wales!!!

[Jonathan]

Great Wall hiking
Here is the something that should excite you because it did to me. www.greatwalladventure.com and there's a blog: http://blog.greatwalladventure.com for updates. I love the service and hope it works for you.