Beijing

19th January 2011

We'll today is going to be not much more interesting either, we've alot of logistics and loose ends to sort today for the coming months so we were quite busy today. 

We had to sort out

1)Organise our Japanese Railpass - Without this our railcosts in Japan will be on par with the Irish national debt!

2)Book Train to Xi'an - The Terrocota warriors and probably the worst time to travel by Train

3)Flights to Shanghai - Cheap as chips from Xi'an..but getting there is the conundrum

4)Flight to South America from Toyko - So far the best option, both from a logistics and expense point of view is Santiago, Chile via Candada (Vancouver & Torronto)

1) This was pretty easy thanks to a little friend called the interent (what would we do without it). I headed to the JAL offices in Beijing and unfortunately as we were not a Japan Airlines customer they couldn't help us, however she directed us to the travel agent on the 3rd floor that looked after everything and we were sorted in the hour.  phew!

2) Train to Xi'an we knew this would be fun, it was one stop back from the JAL offices on the subway, we were in the foreigner window queue (yes that's what it's called) and all we could get was a hardseat or 3rd class if you want to be pedantic, fuck it we took it, I've been on worse heaps in Vietnam and it adds to the adventure. A footnote on this: The subway in both Beijing and Hong Kong is stellar, why on earth Dublin hasn't got something remotely similar in 2011 is beyond me...but then again you only have to look at the current clownshow before the penney drops.

3) After booking the train we headed back to the room and powered up the internet, we decided to stay 5 more days in Beijing as there's lots to do. Our flight from Xi'an was pretty cheap and now sorted.

4) Sure I'll asess the situation on the South America flight, we checked and not only was it slightly cheaper there was one option that skipped Vancouver altogether so we only go Toyko - Torronto - Santiago...needless to say it was booked immediately

So as for Beijing, I took a walk to the square and it's pretty cool, they are very security concious here, Xray machines at the subway and entering government sites. It's a skangers heaven here, they spit everywhere (including the floor of the bus), I decided to join the festivities and hock up a big gulley on the pavement, of course I get the funny looks for doing this :) ..If you can't beat them join them.As you can see I walked as far as the Mao building, it's not called that but I'll be passing it again with a proper map in a day or 2 enroute to the forbidden city.

We found a savage bakery down the road from us, best pasteries since I left Ireland. Lot's of choices to eat here and masive portions of food.

Tonight is going to Be an early one, we are going to head to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall tomorrow, this is a fair old trek outside of Beijing but alot less people come out here.

........so where exactely are these 9 million Bicycles??