BEIJING

Although I correctly wrote that I headed to Shanghai after Zhongdian, I thought it better to write about my week long trip to Beijing..as this is where holiday times have ended!!

I headed up there with 2 friends I met from Vietnam, so as well as unpacking the bags and sleeping in the same bed more than 4 nights in a row...it was nice travelling with people who'd known me more than a couple of nights!

So, te be honest the change of routine from travelling has meant the antics have calmed to normal levels...only when left alone do things seem to go a little (OK, a lot) wrong for me...

Saying that Beijing itself was excellent, and although I was more than tired of sightseeing and devoting my day to the contents of a guideboook I'm glad I managed to get myself up and around.

However, major world tourist sites such as the Great Wall, Tiannemen Square etc. are busy at the best of times...visiting such places on anice sunny day on a Chinese national holiday was suicide! No wonder my friends opted to leave me to 'explore' on my own for those days!

After a while, the polite British attitude of letting people in front of you and allowing gaps of mroe than 1 inch between people soon leaves you, anbd you find yourself with the same mentality as that oof an American football player - anyone in my path gets flattened!

So, a stressful day of flattening old ladies and Children out of my way was well worth it in Tiannemen Square.

My trip to the Great Wall was equally as good, if not slightly better...after having seen many of the 'must see' sights on my trip, you know somewhere really deserves the label when you get there and have one of those "wow, I'm actually here!" moments...the Great Wall was definitely that for me.

Although it was nearly impossible to get a view of the wall disappearing into the distance without trourist shaped obstructions (usually American thick white cotton socks - a camera picks those bad boys up from half a mile away!)

The resultant shots were good and the views were worth all the biazrrely small steps up and down everywhere...were ancient Chinese people really that small that 1 inch high steps were necessary?

Having a problem posting pics onto the blog at the moment, so will sort out soon...next post to update the current situation in Shanghai...more details (and effort into the posts) to follow!