Beijing

After arriving safely in Beijing yesterday morning we walked from our hostel down to Tiananmen Square. It is a truly awesome place to see and we wandered around for a few hours like the tourists that we are, taking many pictures. One thing we hadn't expected is that the square has several lanes of traffic thundering around the outside of it. We stayed until sunset to watch the flag lowering ceremony; the locals were loving it although I'm not sure it was worth hanging around for. Jetlag hit around 8pm and we were so tired that we got a ricshaw back. The journey was fun, slightly alarming in places yet nowhere near as terrifying as some of the taxi journeys I've had in London.

The flight gave us our first taste of Russian buraeucracy. Cathy had requested a vegetarian meal when we booked the flight. When we asked for this, the stewardess checked her list of vege meals, found Cathy's name and then asked to see her ticket. On seeing it, she said 'this is not a ticket, it is a boarding pass'. I pointed out that the ticket had 'Passenger Ticket' written on the top and that the boarding pass was a different size, shape and colour. She simply shrugged and repeated that it wasn't a ticket. Eventually she stomped off and returned 5 minutes later with the correct meal. We have spent 11 hours on Aeroflot airliners and over 4 hours at Moscow airport and have yet to see a single Russian person smile.

A few more days in Beijing then off to Shanghai.