Here in one piece (just..)

It's over a day and a half later but I am finally here. We had a 3 and a half hour transfer in Dubai and the contrast between the UK, Dubai and China is immense. Dubai was full of rich Arab businessmen and their 10 wives following behind - the airport was packed with people sleeping on the floor strewn about everywhere, and people pushing into queues left right and centre!

I got something to eat whilst I was in Dubai - had a choice of over 30 restaurants and what did I pick... McDonalds - the McArabian burger sounded too unique to miss! :-) I had to chuckle when they had McArabian burgers, date pies (instead of apple pies) and they even sold spring rolls! I thought the menu of McDonalds was universal!

I got to Beijing at 3pm this afternoon - the airport is strictly governed by some rather scary looking blokes in uniform - they look like they wouldn't hesitate to lock you up if you put so much as a hair out of place! Everyone handed in the million forms you have to fill in to get through and not a word was said! It was all quite eerie.

I then had the joys of getting to my hotel - with a taxi driver that couldn't understand me, and me not being able to understand him - a game of charades and lots of pointing later (and a couple of wrong turn offs and car journeys around Beijing) we finally got here - only to find they'd double booked my room!!! They've upgraded me for tonight and I have to move to the room I should have been in tomorrow.

I went for a wander earlier and got harassed by an 80ish year old chinese bloke, ended up with him cycling around with me on the back of the bike in like a rickshaw thing showing me the 'hutong's (the lanes and alleys where a lot of the chinese people live) - you have all the main roads with the big businesses and hotels on and lurking behind is an absolute maze of alleyways with hundreds, if not thousands of houses squashed in there - all tiny, falling in bits, patched up, with a very communist/poor feeling about the place.

There were public noticeboards with pictures of the chinese president on, police around all the time and what amazed me was that each block had their own communal loos and washing facilities - none of the houses had their own bathroom! The only buildings that looked good were the government buildings and the schools.

I may have only been in Beijing a matter of hours, but one of the most distinguishing things I have noticed so far is the vast array of smells my nose if having to decipher - you turn a corner, walk past a different building and you get something unique every time - the whole place has a different smell to it and I'm not sure whether I like it or not - it reminds me of old chip fat oil at the moment!

Anyways, I think I've rambled on a bit too much - I've got a pretty lazy day tomorrow to catch up on not having any sleep for 36hrs, going out at night - then I've got a tour of Beijing planned in for Friday and trekking on the great wall of China on Sunday.

I'll post on here again when I get chance to get to a computer again!