Beijing

Bright and early on Thursday we had to catch our last train which

would bring us to Beijing. This journey included 2 border crossings, 7

hours without a toilet and the changing of the wheels on the train.

The first two bits weren't very exciting or funny, but the wheel

changing was very interesting to see and provided some entertainment

for a few hours of our long journey. The train pulls into a warehouse

type building and one by one the carraiges are lifted, the wheels

pulled from underneath them and then a new set of wheels fixed on for

the Chinese train tracks.

We arrived in Beijing just after lunch on Friday and had an hour or

two to explore the city before we went for Peking duck dinner. It's

not as good as The Eat Well in Eastcote!

We hadn't booked our tickets out of Beijing, as we thought this would
be no problem, but we didn't know that there's a public holiday on
Friday and the first available train to Xian is on 2nd October. So we
have over a week in Beijing, but we're just enjoying exploring the

city.Today we went to the Summer Palace, we've walked through Tianamen

Square, The Olympic stadium and the Hutongs in the city. The weather

is lovely and sunny; Colin is topping up his Siberian tan and I'm

barely browner than I was in London (I'm used to the African sun).

We're doing one of the hikes along The Great Wall tomorrow, so really

excited, but need an early night as we get picked up at 6am and don't

get back till 7:30pm.

Our camera is permanently out; everything is so colourful and

beautiful. Unfortunately no pictures to share at the moment, but we'll

try and add some later if we find somewhere we can upload pictures.