A week in Beijing and a train to Shanghai.

After my expensive early education in Beijing, 'Introduction to China 101: Trust nobody who talks to you in the street' I felt I was much more prepared for dealing with China's capital. I was approached dozens more times, mostly by attractive women, trying to strike up conversations with me. Now, I know what you're thinking, but in this instance it wasn't my wide-on inducing good looks but the fact there may have been a few notes in my wallet that was the attraction. I actually began to enjoy toying with them a little, stringing some along and directing the conversation to deliver my rehearsed punchlines, which entertained me but simultaneously confused and seemingly offended them. Some looked very offended when they latched on that I was wised-up to their intentions, which is pretty perverse really. I'd often be asked 'Herrow mistah - where you fwom, you speak Anglish?' - I asked them if they spoke Chinese, and suggested they go and invite a Chinese person for a $200 cup of tea, they have a billion of them to choose from and they'd probably have more in common than they would with me. When they said they only wanted to practice their English, I complimented them that their English was actually pretty good, but it was their morals that they ought to be working on. The encounters I took most pleasure from was when I stopped as if to engage in conversation, but just stared them blankly in the eye, responding to nothing they said, but just gawping like a lobotomised mouth-breathing ITV viewer. They really didn't know what to make of me.

Wanfujing shopping street.

Side street markets.

Downtown Beijing. 

A busy junction near where I was staying.

Fun with tea-muggers (or tuggers, and not to be confused with the happy-ending masseuses) aside, I enjoyed Beijing but was perhaps slightly underwhelmed by lots of things in the city. I really enjoyed wandering along the little hutongs, the alleyways of old Beijing, where you could observe little communities and catch a glimpse into a way of life, which from the outside seemed calm and leisurely. Old people sat out, waiting for dinner or death, children played simple games in the street, mothers hung out washing and dads tinkered with engines. Like crickets in the countryside as the constant background aural accompaniment, the sound of Beijing was the hack-put of people clearing their throats and projecting white balls of lung juice anywhere they fancied. 

The things for tourists within the city, and although old, culturally and nationalistically important, I found a little uninspiring. Tiananmen Square is world famous, but having been there it's clearly only famous for the events which took place there rather than for anything currently within it. In fairness, when I first emerged into the Tiananmen area, with the square on my left and the entrance to the Forbidden City on my right, I felt the might of the Chinese state pressing down on me from the architecture I was enveloped by. The scale of the site was huge, and it seemed to yell of it's own awesome might and the insignificance and irrelevance of my puny individual power. This was certainly the impression it left on me, and I'm sure that was the intention of it's creators. Inside the square is very little, apart from tens of thousands of Chinese tourists affirming their national identity, like taking communion, by attending the cathedral of the state and buying their children little flags to wave so they don't forget who they are. 

The entrance to the Forbidden City which faces Tiananmen Square. Mao's still watching over his people.

Chinese stars in their eyes.

Cleaning up in Tiananmen.

A guard stands to attention in front of Mao's mausoleum.

They have McDonalds in China too.

The Forbidden City is a huge complex in the heart of Beijing, built for Emperors to live and play in without having to mix with any mere mortals the other side of the walls and moat. I went on the Sunday with two friends I had made in the hostel, Cornelia from Switzerland and Justin from Canada, and the crowds of Chinese tourists slightly choked the enjoyment of the site, but generally I found it a little uninspiring. I felt the same way about the Taj Mahal in Agra some seven years previously. We wandered through the Forbidden City, and whilst the scale was very impressive, or gratuitous, depending on your perspective, and many of the buildings were beautifully decorated with impressive detail, it was a much-of-a-muchness for me, and my companions felt the same. Perhaps our ignorance was a hindrance, not fully understanding what we were looking at, but I prefer to wander and explore places myself than be led by a guide or be bridled by headphones. We spent an hour or so exploring the avenues to the east of the main drag, to avoid to bulk of the crowds, having still laid eyes upon the main sights. There were little museums in some of the small buildings in pretty courtyards, displaying sceptres and jade trinkets and various symbols of wealth and power.

A park I went through on the way to the Forbidden City.

Entrance to the Forbidden City.

Much of this type of thing - but I wasn't particularly moved by any of it.

The Forbidden City - we were allowed in though if you paid £6.

Brightly decorated and clearly very restored.

Afterwards we took the metro to the Olympic park, site of the Beijing 2008 Olympics. I actually enjoyed this more than the Forbidden City in many respects. Again it was full of Chinese tourists visiting from the sticks, but there was a semi carnival atmosphere and felt lively and vibrant, even though the party had finished over four years ago. We had to pose with Chinese families who wanted to take their picture with us, particularly Cornelia who has long blond hair. I guess these families from rural China don't get to see many Europeans, and we were almost the only foreigners there. Many children were flying kites outside the famous Birds Nest stadium, which along with the other buildings were starting to look a little weathered, with a coating of dust and pollution, and plastic rags blown by the wind snagged in the eaves. Will, my friend from London who is spending ten days with me in China after just holidaying in Thailand before heading back home, bought a kite and flew it with much delight, his imminent 28th birthday no obstacle for simple childhood pleasures. We spent a few hours at the site, soaking up the atmosphere and walking around; I'd only wanted to see the Olympic park, I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. 

Beijing metro - clean, modern and efficient.

Roller bladers in the Olympic park.

Will - flying his kite.

The famous Birds Nest stadium at dusk.

Olympic park

Kite flying - with LED attachments seemed to be very popular - the boy racers of kiting. 

On my Monday in Beijing I visited Jingshan Park, which sits at the north end of the Forbidden City, and is actually an artificial hill which towers over the Imperial complex, and was constructed from the material excavated to create the huge moat which surrounds the site. After a sweaty climb I reached the top to find a large pavilion housing a big golden Buddha, with many Chinese giving offerings and bowing their heads in private prayers. The views from the top were great, you could really take in the scale of the Forbidden city, and take in lots of other Beijing sites too. I could see an area called Beihai Park which surrounds a large lake we had visited a few nights previously to sample the nightlife, but no way could I see the city limits, partly due to the scale as at 20 million people Beijing is one of the world's biggest cities, but more due to the fact of a heavy haze which hung over the city, disappointingly restricting sight to a mile or so.

Jingshan Park.

The hazy view to Beihei Lake. 

The big gold Buddha.

The view down onto the Forbidden City.

A woman photographs roses in Jingshan Park.

Later that afternoon I walked for an hour or so to check out the Temple of Heaven, another of the sites of old Imperial Beijing. My walk took me along the western edge of the Forbidden City, down to the super modern, alien egg-like Beijing National Stadium, before walking along a pedestrianised shopping street south of Tiananmen Square; which was full of western chains or shops aimed at tourists, before diving down a bustling backstreet full of tat-vendors and Chinese restaurants which was more more interesting and unsanitised. I then walked through neighbourhoods where clearly not many tourists venture, as everyone I passed gawped at me with curiosity. Eventually and with tired legs I made it to the Temple of Heaven. The site is situated in a huge park that is nicely kept and was relaxing to walk around, even if my thighs were beginning to long for a rest. The temple itself, again was pleasing on the eye and highly decorated, but again slightly underwhelming - I think I demand too much these days. I struggled to see inside the temple building, hordes of Chinese were jostling at the fenced off doorway for a glimpse of whatever lay inside; I had a peek on tiptoes but decided whatever it was wasn't interesting enough to fight with the crowds. I wandered through the park looking for the other part of the site, I saw one bit was closed for refurbishment, so assumed this was it and decided to do my legs a favour and leave in the direction of the subway. What was being refurbished may not have been the second part of the Temple of Heaven, but my legs were grateful and that was more important.

There really are a lot of Chinese.

Beijing National Stadium.

Back street shops and restaurants.

Bustling markets selling nick-nacks and tat.

Chinese tat

Park around the Temple of Heaven - Chinese men like to flaunt their bellies.

The Temple of Heaven - I'll hope for more when I die.

Will, Cornelia and I.

On my final day in Beijing, we took a trip organised through our hostel to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, which is about 70km out of Beijing. I was slightly reticent about taking an organised trip but I'd spoken to someone who had done it the day before who sang it's praises and decided to trust their judgement. I was surprised to see we weren't on a huge coach but a much smaller minivan with just nine of us onboard. I dozed on the way to the wall having had to get up early and not got to bed early the night before, and on arrival I realised it was a baking hot and near crystal clear day. We took a cable car up the wall, the climb would have taken up too much of our limited time and fitness, and I was pleasantly surprised that there weren't too many people at all. There were still a fair few, but at least half were foreigners, the huge packs of Chinese tourists were not here, I think they elect to go to the section of the wall a bit closer to Beijing. I had dreamed of getting a misty dawn photo of the wall with no people on it, but I don't have the will or desire to go to such lengths to reproduce something done by thousands of people before - instead I would make do with waiting for a moment or angle where I could hide the tourists from view. We had a few hours walking along the wall, taking in the surrounding lush hills, and enjoying the cool shade of the watch towers every few hundred metres and listening to the sound of cicadas, like alien dial-up modems whirring in the trees. I really enjoyed the wall, it was probably my favourite tourist experience of Beijing, and after a pleasant three hour stroll we made our way back down to the hustling hawkers below via toboggan. I'd never been on one before but it was really good fun and it made a nice little bit of video too. 

The Great Wall of China.

I had neglected plenty of other tourist attractions in Beijing, I hadn't set foot in a museum, I'd turned my back on plenty of temples and old Imperial monuments and spurned bustling markets, but I felt I'd had a pretty good taste of the city however, and all at my own pace. I had sampled the nightlife on quite a few occasions, and it was surprisingly quiet and disappointing for a super city of it's enormity, finding busier nights back in the drinking dross of Peterborough, but perhaps in Beijing we'd gone to the wrong place, at the wrong time. The Saturday night was our first attempt at a big night out. We'd researched a little online and plumped for the area around Beihai lake, described as a hip and up-and-coming area with cool bars, live music and popular with Beijingers, rather than the soundingly garish and neon lit Sanlitun Road area. We took a taxi to the lake after originally trying to make it on foot. The location was quite beautiful, with plenty of nice bars clinging to the shore of the tranquil lake, and there was enough of a buzz in the area to suggest we'd found something good. We popped into a few of the bars and looked at the drinks menu, and were slightly surprised to see bottles of beer costing around £5, and one menu had my favourite Guinness advertised at £12. After a quick rethink I suggested we find an alternative method to lubricating the wheels of the evening, so we found an open convenience store and bought bottles of the local 46% rice wine and some mixers - all for under £1, and walked around the lake drinking our own cocktails until finding a bar with pumping music and a dance floor to exploit. They seemed desperate to get us into their establishment, so let us bring our own booze in, before we ordered a home-priced beer from the bar. Thanks to the rice wine it was only a few minutes before we were up on the near empty dance floor, but without bragging it seemed that we were the injection needed to bring the place to life, as soon after more joined us and the atmosphere was cranked up a few notches. Within a minute I had a Chinese girl throwing herself around my waist. Now, as already discussed my aphrodisiacal affect on women is well documented (for those who don't know me - my tongue is placed firmly in my cheek as I write, not up my own arse) but I was of course immediately suspicious of this dance-limpet; was she a whore, was she trying to rob me, or was she fucking bat-shit mental? Well, she never asked for any money, I kept aware of my phone and wallet at all times and she never went near them, but she did tell me she loved me about five times - so clearly she was some kind of nut-job. I don't know if she just waits in there, hoping a western man will come in and will offer her, whatever it is she is hoping for. Who knows. In truth she kind of terrified me, I'm never comfortable with anyone throwing themselves at me, I always think they're unhinged and I'd rather be rejected by someone of my choosing, than have to try and slink away from some sexed-up nutter constantly trying to shove her twitching steak of a tongue into my mouth. Call me old fashioned but where's the romance? We're not 15 anymore. Well maybe she was. Bonus. 

The following night we thought we'd check out the other place we had read of, Sanlitun Road. One side of the street was packed with bars, most of them empty save for the musicians and singers performing to crowds of threes. Our main intention of heading out was to find somewhere showing the football, and we managed to catch the second half of Manchester City v Southampton. Our hostel companion Cornelia didn't get much attention for 45 minutes, she didn't seem to mind though and half decent singers sang Chinese pop on the stage. We eked out one pricey beer over the half before having a little explore of the area and heading back home. We knew it was a Sunday night but was this it - we thought. Surely in a city of nearly twenty million there must be at least a few thousand that want to have a party every night of the week. We consulted some contacts who live in Beijing, and discovered that actually, the liveliest area of Sanlitun is a backstreet situated between two super modern shopping malls the other side of the road, and only idiots go to where we had gone the night before to watch the football.

The next night we made amends and followed the directions we had been given, and sure enough we found a bustling backstreet filled with bars, street food, a flowing crowd and much cheaper drinks than we had seen elsewhere. It was a Monday night however, and it still wasn't packed. It was Will's birthday so we made the most of it - sat out at a table on the pavement drinking beer and chatting for a few hours before finding a near-empty bar with music to dance to and a floor to do it on. We had fun and again seemed to get the Chinese up on their feet and joining in. It almost seems like they are waiting for permission to have fun, either that or something to do with the face-saving culture and not wanting to be out-done by some foreigners. Anyway, it turned into a fun night, we had to make our own fun to a certain extent but we had certainly found the best place for it. 

The evening after was much more civilised, in part because we had to be up early for the trip the to Great Wall the next morning. We met up with a friend of a friend from London I'd met previously on a stag do, and who was living in Beijing working as an English teacher, which is a very common job for expats here. We went to a little local restaurant and had some excellent food, before exploring a pleasantly quaint and smart street with nice shops and bars on. We played out the remainder of the evening sat on a rooftop bar chatting away over a few beers until we were forced out by closing time. 

Civilised evening.

By our final night in Beijing, we'd assembled a little crew from our hostel, consisting of two Brits (us) a Swiss, an Irish, an American and a Taiwanese fella. We went back to the bustling backstreet and it was much busier than before. We spent some time in a decent bar playing really good music right to our tastes and none of the contemporary dance floor pop was in earshot. I'd arranged to meet Nora, the Mongolian pop star from the train to China I had met and got on with, and she turned up looking beautiful along with a work friend of hers. We spent ages chatting and I neglected my hostel friends, before we all moved on to a bigger place playing the usual lowest common denominator dance music. The hours flew by in there, and when it was on its knees we left to find some food with the Mongolians. I was a little drunk so anything would've tasted good, but the barbecued chicken was delicious, and I didn't even mind eating a snail which seemed to be part of some one-up-manship that I wasn't going to back away from. Will and I then left with the two Mongolians, our group having been severed somewhere along the way, to head to another club a taxi ride away. We arrived at the most garish Russian nightclub, filled with gold, ugly velvet drapes and nouveau-riche tastes, and you entered and exited this cavernous tasteless hole via escalators, a first in a club for me. The only people in there seemed to be prostitutes, a mixture of Chinese and Russian, but we showed little interest in each other, both wary of how it was an obvious waste of each others time. I had fun with my company though and spent the dregs of the night chatting and dancing, doing my best with Nora but I was beginning to wish she shared the values, or lack of values, of the Chinese girl who had pestered me on our first night out in Beijing. We took the escalator up into a blue dawn, and Will and I stumbled up into our dorm room at 6.30 in the morning, knowing we'd have to wake up at 9 in order to catch out train to Shanghai. 

I had to almost kick a still drunk Will out of bed in the morning, and we only just made it to the station on time to catch the high speed train to China's largest city. The train was super modern, nicely air conditioned and very comfortable. We only sat in our seats for two minutes of the 5 hour and 800 mile journey. The rest of the time we sat in the restaurant car, originally going to find some breakfast, but remained there for the remainder of the really enjoyable journey. It was a great experience, it was really impressive and puts to shame anything at home. We had great views of a good stretch of China out of the window, racing by lush and fertile farmland and silently streaming past huge megacities the size of London we had never heard of before. On the approach to Shanghai, which was the last hour of the journey, we were constantly in an urban sprawl, linking different cities and townships, but the scale of urban China was astonishing. Ginormous tower blocks and 15 storey housing estates were strewn for mile after mile, eight-lane highways shot under us every few kilometres, and the concrete jungle was only occasionally punctured by small patches of lush green, where crops were being cultivated in between the districts of this metropolis. We arrived in Shanghai station by 4pm, I was certainly feeling a little sleepy, and without too much difficulty in navigation made it to our incredibly central hotel which we had already booked.

Beijing South train station.

Boarding the bullet train.

Family has lunch aboard.

Arriving in Shanghai.

The best train ever.

Shanghai at night.

Beijing hair cuts and tea scams.

My second day in Beijing started out relatively quiet. I caught up with writing these blogs, before in the afternoon going out to find a snack and deciding to get my hair cut. I popped into a salon I walked by, and gestured I wanted my hair cut. I had my already clean hair washed before I was sat in the chair. Having my hair washed in a salon was a first for me. A wonderfully gay young hairdresser attentively cut my hair and chatted to me in understandable but limited English, before my hair was washed again, and I was off on my way looking sharper than I was before.

Getting my hair cut.

Walking though the hutongs.

I wanted to find Tiananmen Square, just for a look, having failed to find it the previous day. Somehow I made the same mistake with my miniature map and walked the same streets, I clearly needed a bigger map, as I couldn't see half of the streets I was walking on the version I had. I was looking at my map when a pretty and petite Chinese woman started speaking to me in good English. I told her I was looking for the square and she said she was heading that way, so she could walk with me if I wanted. Fair enough I thought, I'd already failed twice in finding it so some help couldn't hurt. We chatted as we walked along and she was very friendly and inquisitive. I found her mildly annoying but I was on my own so company was usually welcome, and I'd told myself to be open and accepting of new encounters and experiences. We walked for a while and she said she had a short wait before she was due to meet a friend, and would I want to grab a coffee with her. I thought ok, it's not often I get asked to coffee by strange women, but I couldn't see the harm and I had time to kill. I'm usually slightly suspicious of propositions like this, but I couldn't see any physical danger to me. After all we were in public in central Beijing and she was a small thing who wouldn't have stood a chance of mugging me with force, and she was being a bit flirty and my male brain thought you never know, I might get something out of this.

We popped into a place that served drinks, she asked if we wanted to sit at the seats on the pavement, but then suggested as if it was my idea that we went inside, it was humid after all. I went along with this and we went into a small private room with a table and a tv screen for karaoke. I was asked what I wanted, I wasn't fussed, and she suggested, again like it was my idea, that while I was in China I should drink the tea. I thought this was a good idea and accepted. First of all a beer arrived on the table, which I thought was slightly odd having said I'd have tea, but she had a beer too so thought perhaps she had ordered them. Whatever, I'll drink a beer, I thought. She said she had to call her friend she was meeting up with to tell her where she had gone, and within a minute her friend had arrived, which was slightly suspicious in hindsight but perhaps she was just in the neighbourhood. I asked them how they knew each other, I didn't pin down an exact answer, I thought she said from school and they were old friends, and I thought it strange that at 24 the friend was 5 years younger than the woman who had stopped me on the street. Something lost in translation I thought. Teas were brought to us, a big plate of watermelon and some crisp things, of which I ate one. I hadn't ordered it but I'd often experienced places bringing small plates of things out, often for free, when you go in for a drink. More beer was brought and my glass was constantly topped up. Slightly over the top hospitality - I thought. We chatted for a while about all sorts. They were very flirty, and I was slightly wary, not really going along with their attempted charms, finding it slightly unusual that strangers would behave like this, but I wasn't suspecting anything untoward, and I never felt threatened, they were fairly fragile and no match for even a skinny me. They said they liked to practice their English and they liked foreign men, I just thought I was having a drink with some slightly odd and potentially slutty women, but it was all nice enough. They'd talked of us going to some bars, perhaps to karaoke, but I shied away from this idea, I wasn't keen on spending an entire evening with them, it felt a little bit weird and I wanted to return to the hostel to do my own thing. I said maybe.


The bill arrived, and it puzzled me. I looked at it a couple of times, and the friend who had arrived was paying her share and had whipped out several 100 Yuan notes. I pulled a couple of the same notes out of my wallet, not fully adjusted to the currency and looked at the bill again. Was there a decimal place in there that I couldn't see? I couldn't see one, which meant the bill was over £130. I suddenly realised this was a scam, and I'd been taken for a ride. They'd had the few hundred (£10 each) notes off me I had in my hand by this time, and were demanding I pay the rest on my credit card. I tell them this is fucking ridiculous, it has to be a scam, there is no way this costs this amount. She said it's normal for special tea, the room hire cost, karaoke (which we didn't use), the food, the beer looked like it cost £15 on the bill, when in a restaurant it costs 50p. She turned quite aggressive and her teeth snarled like a dog's, she said had already paid over half of it and it wasn't fair that I wasn't paying my share, I stupidly let them take another note from me, and I became annoyed and my body language became aggressive. She kept going on about it being ok to use my credit card, but I told her to get fucked and there was no way I was handing over my card. I grabbed my camera, and slung the bag over my shoulder to leave. The three of them stood in my way, apparently unhappy that I hadn't paid my share. I pushed through them and yanked the door open to make my way to the street. They followed and I told them I knew I had just been scammed, they should be ashamed of themselves for what they'd managed to do. The one who first approached me did look ashamed and she tried to say it wasn't trick and was I coming to karaoke. I told them to go fuck themselves and skulked off back in the direction I had come from. I was angry and embarrassed that I had been mugged like this. I never saw it coming until 15 seconds after the bill arrived. I thought it was a bit weird, but I'd already been helped out by friendly strangers who wanted nothing in return, and I didn't see how this encounter could end badly. I was annoyed I had paid anything at all, I felt I should have just left a tenner which would have been more than fair, grabbed my stuff and pushed my way out, but instead I lost about four times this. I did have my camera with me though which is worth a hell of a lot of money, and in the back of my mind I didn't want the situation to turn any worse and end up risking this. At the best I thought I might have got a blow job out of the situation after their flirtatiousness, but I never expected to get fucked.

Later that evening I looked the scam up online and read hundreds of people recounting exactly the same story, and it's a very common trick. I'd never done any research and hadn't heard of it, so never saw the signs that it was coming. It seems obvious in hindsight, but I was willing to trust people and take them at face value, as most people who talk to you are genuinely friendly and curious. I half expect to be approached again during my time in Beijing. I'll know what to look out for, I just need to think of a way to turn the scam on it's head and end up screwing them over.

Exploring the side streets.

Someone's house?

The train to China

Ulaanbaatar's parliament in the main square.

My time in Mongolia had come to an end. I was actually slightly sad to be leaving; I'd had a great time in the country, I'd met a host of great people and was enjoying their company and getting to know them, and was enjoying my life in Ulaanbaatar. It was very comfortable, I could eat nice food, and my days were spent casually doing the little bits of work I had to do, whilst popping out to meet people for drinks or on a casual errand, with no stress or pressure. Lot's of people say they don't like UB - it's too polluted, the traffic is too hectic, and few things are reliable. I had come to accept all of these annoyances, along with the dangers of loose manhole covers, random holes in the pavements and various hassles, and had a strange fondness of the city. I had nothing but good times there, but now I am in Beijing I can see how difficult and frustrating the city can be, and comparatively how underdeveloped it is. My initial culture shock had worn off and been replaced with the comfort of familiarity. This was pointed out to me by my friend Patrick Duce. I'd told him the story of how I'd been in a nightclub and ended up covered in my own blood after I'd badly cut my thumb without realising in a vodka haze, and then proceeded to throw up onto the broken streets on my walk home. I'd almost become the brawling Australian miners I had seen on my first night here; and as I like to jokingly claim about Peterborough - UB was now my fucking town.

The iconic Blue Sky Tower in central UB.

The UB traffic.

Anyway, as visas dictate I had to leave and despite my willingness to remain in UB for longer, I was still looking forward to seeing China, and having a much better food menu in front of me. I left the apartment I was staying in just before 7pm, with my train leaving around 8pm. The roads were a car park stretching for as far as the eye could see. With nobody moving anywhere I decided to walk to the station, deciding I could make the two miles in time. I was making decent progress, sometimes even trying to jog to assure I would make it on time, but with nearly 30kg strapped to my torso the sweat was  trickling down my sternum like never before. I was perhaps about 15 minutes away when the traffic cleared a bit and I decided to flag a taxi to take me the remainder of the way.

I arrived at the station with a little bit of time to spare. I bought some noodles and drinks for the journey, unsure if there would be a restaurant car or food available, and made my way to my carriage. I had seen no other foreigners at the train station or boarding the train. The first I saw were when I entered my four person compartment, to find two thirty year old German guys sat there. We spent the evening getting to know each other and casually catching up with our journals whilst drinking the beer which they provided.

The train leaving Mongolia that evening.

I awoke in the morning when we stopped at the border with China on the edge of the Gobi desert. We were stationary for a while during which time passports were collected and customs duties carried out, and were able to go for a brief wander. We'd got chatting to a beautiful young Mongolian girl who had caught my eye the day before. Once we had entered China, we had an hour or two of free time before our train continued, and she very helpfully took the three of us off into town to change our Mongolian money into Chinese, and then to a fast food restaurant to grab a quick bite. Without her we probably would have sat bored at the station for a couple of hours, instead we had a productive and pleasant introduction to northern China.

The border town on the edge of the Gobi.

We re-boarded the train and our new friend joined us in our compartment. It turned out she worked as a music producer and composer of film scores, and also has a bit of a career as a singer and performer. She was perhaps being a bit modest as on YouTube she has a few highly produced pop videos with people calling her Mongolia's Lady Gaga. She was incredibly friendly, very sweet and attractive to boot, and had the train journey been a bit longer I may have fallen in love with her. The German guys, Lars and Frid, had a guitar and a melodica with them. I had never really seen a melodica up close before, but it's a keyboard you play by blowing into a pipe. We spent the entire afternoon making music and writing songs in our little room, and she was a very talented musician. I bashed out a few tunes on the guitar and she produced wonderful harmonies on the spot, and we all had a great journey into China.

Making music in our compartment.

Rolled past many of these idential farmsteads in northern China - were they communes?

We arrived at our destination in China at around 7pm - a town called Jining in Inner Mongolia. Nora, our Mongolian musician friend was continuing to another city where she would be performing, so we waved goodbye and arranged to meet up in Beijing having swapped details. I needed to buy a ticket from Jining to Beijing, and before that I had to get some money, and after trying a few ATMs unsuccessfully I eventually had enough cash to see me through. I went to the ticket office in the train station and it was heaving with people. I queued for over half an hour to get to the desk for my ticket. It was interesting watching the Chinese while I waited, and it wasn't the most pleasant of introductions. They're not famous for their queueing etiquette, and I witnessed them pushing their way forward like annoying coked-up-drunks in a throbbing festival crowd. They also spit like professional footballers, and everywhere, even the women. In China you never seem to be more than 10 feet from someone emptying the fluid from their lungs in the noisiest way. Two women had an almighty argument in the ticket hall, and I was half hoping it would come to blows just for my own entertainment; instead they just squealed at each other like two pigs in an abattoirs. Watching the Chinese aside, I got to the front of the queue and mimed what I wanted. I got my ticket for just over £10 I think, leaving at 2am and arriving at 8am. I was on a different train to Lars and Frid, they had tickets for a slightly earlier train that left just after 1am. We also met a guy who had spent six years in the Israeli army, and was now traveling for a while. He had been talking to a couple of young Chinese people, who took the time out to take us to a nice restaurant in a backstreet and help us, even though they had already eaten. We had some delicious food, a couple of huge dishes between us and beers to drink, costing £2 each. It was a lovely act on their behalf, who spent an hour with us before going on their way, and we bought a few beers to drink at the station as we waited.

Back streets of Jining.

A great meal with friendly strangers.

The evening passed and my short term friends caught their trains and I was then on my own. The nice leather sofa lounge we had been occupying closed for the night, so I was taken to the plebs lounge, which smelt like a public toilet. It probably was. The time my train was due to arrive came but my train didn't. The previous trains had been slightly delayed so I wasn't fussed. I decided to go outside and wait on the platform as the Chinese staring at me like ECT patients and the overbearing smell of piss were getting a little bit much. Outside felt fresh and I wandered down the platform to look for somewhere to sit. Within a minute a Chinese train guard was barking something at me. so I ambled over towards him and he escorted me to the guards room, where a load of them were sat around dozing and smoking. I sat with them for 15 minutes, slightly unsure of why they had invited me to sit in with them, I assumed because I was foreign, and because of this we weren't able to communicate with each other, but I studied the room and the things in it inquisitively.

My train screeched into the station, and I boarded my carriage. The ticket I had purchased was a hard sleeper; the beds were just as soft, but the lay out is much more public. It was the middle of the night when I got on, and everyone was asleep. Id not been in this class before, and I walked the length of the carriage trying to figure out which one was my bed. It was a bit strange to walk past 60-odd strangers sleeping. It looked like an open plan morgue. I found my bed and settled in for quite a comfortable nights sleep.

The platform in Jining at 2am.

My train arrives.

I awoke on the approach to Beijing. On the outskirts were attractive hills swamped with lush vegetation. There was a pleasant haze and the sun reflecting through the hanging veil of mist made everything shades of white. I watched the suburbs of Beijing roll by and before long I was out on the platform at Beijing train station. I made my way through the terminal which was swollen with a sea of people. It was rush hour afterall, and it seemed to be a mixture of commuters and Chinese visitors towing suitcases. I felt a sense of excitment, and also satisfaction having made it all the way from Peterborough to Beijing on the train. It took me five train journeys to get here, and incredibly, it can be done in just four. Sometimes you need more than four trains to cross London, and I'd crossed half the world in five. I also felt slightly disappointed, that it had all been so easy. Everything so far has been great, a wonderful experience that I don't regret for a second, but perhaps I had been hoping for more of a challenge.

Hard class sleeper - everyone's in it together.

Arriving in Beijing train station.

Just a few of the billion Chinese moving through the station.

Peterborough to the Pacific (almost) - I'd made it.

Beijing Railway Station.

I stepped out into Beijing to the smell of cooking food and concrete dust. I popped into the McDonalds to grab a familiar breakfast, but mainly to try and use the wifi. I wasn't really sure of where I was meant to be going, I'd never located the exact address. I couldn't use the wifi as I could't read the Chinese registration screen. I asked a 10 year old girl sat next to me to help me, she flashed a big smile and said 'OK I help', but it turned out she was unable to. I went and found the subway and joined the long queue for tickets, before figuring out where I wanted to go to. I knew the name of the general district of Beijing I was booked to stay in, so took a train there and thought I would figure it out once I was in Dongcheng. I got out at a station but the neighbourhood looked fairly business-like, with big modern office blocks all around, not somewhere you usually find a hostel. I walked for a bit looking for an open wifi network to jump on, and shortly found one. I was a tube stop away from where I needed to be, so got back on the subway and easily found my way to the place I would be staying.

It turned out that I'd actually booked into their sister hostel but the website never made that clear. I asked if I could stay here instead as I didn't fancy trekking it across town with all my luggage again. They booked me into a nice private room for one night, and I emailed the other hostel to say I would in fact be arriving tomorrow.

After relaxing I went to explore the local neighbourhood. I was impressed with Beijing. It was very clean, very modern, nicely paved and the traffic seemed less heavy than home. I walked into a commercial area with many big shops, huge billboards on roofs and twinkling neon lights everywhere. I was half looking for something like Tiananmen Square or something famous. The map I had lacked detail and although I was close I never found it. I walked along a street with dozens of foodstalls, that seemed to be as much for tourists and a novelty as a genuine eating place. Most of the food were things on sticks. I walked along as people shouted at me offering me the goods on their stall. Some things looked acceptable, like marinaded meat or squid legs; and then came the scorpions, crickets, grubs, entire miniature sharks, tarantulas, crayfish, and huge worms found inside the stomach of sheep. All impaled on little wooden sticks waiting to be grilled. It was like a zoo on skewers. I opted not to try any of these ridiculous delicacies at this moment, and continued walking. I ducked into the hutongs. The old narrow side streets away from all the commercialism. These alleyways twist and wind between the main blocks, and it just seemed to be family neighbourhoods. They had a really relaxed atmosphere and I could feel the community. Old people sat out chatting and children played games with each other. No one paid any attention to me as I drifted through, and I was looking forward to exploring more of these as time went on.

One of the first things I found while exploring - a Catholic church.

Downtown Beijing.

Food on offer - that's squid tentacles hanging down in the middle.

Entire baby birds on sticks.

The food vendors.

Scorpions and grasshoppers fried and on a stick - what more could you want.

I'd moaned about the food in Mongolia...

Tarantulas, small sharks, sheep worms - I'm not that hungry.

The hutongs - alleyways and communities in more traditional Beijing.

I enjoyed watching the Chinese. They were different to the Mongolians. Perhaps appearing a little ruder, with their constant spitting and more pushy approach to sales. I enjoyed listening to their conversations. It's an interesting tonal language, full of long vowels. To me it sounded like somebody speaking backwards whilst getting into a hot bath. Also many of them seemed to be rowing constantly. I don't know if it's just the way in which they speak, or if half of them are arguing. It sounds like a frustrated and short tempered arguing, like somebody bollocking an inept colleague for the umpteenth time. At first when I was riding the subway, I noticed how unattractive I found most people, especially compared to Ulaanbaatar which actually was quite an attractive city. Looking around the carriage I thought most of them must have been born in the year of the pig. I must've been in the ugly carriage however, as as time went by, the attractive tally rose as I spotted those born in the year of the fox, and it wasn't the yellow fever kicking in.

In the evening I took myself for another walk around my neighbourhood, going the opposite direction and in search of food. I settled in a place that was bright and had lots of Chinese people in and picture menus. I chose a safe dish of beef and vegetables in some sauce with steamed rice and a beer, and had a pleasant time for £4. I'd had a nice first day in Beijing. I hadn't done much, but it felt a bright and exciting place and I had a feeling I was going to enjoy my time here.

Neighbourhood by my hostel.

Night time street life - Chinese sat out playing a game that looks a cross between dominoes and rummy.

Eating out.