Just a quick note to say that I've arrived here ok! I managed to get the bus from the airport to the train station which I was so proud of! I avoided all the people trying to get me to go to some random hotel or get me a taxi pretending I knew where I was going. I was fine once I knew where the station actually was apart from walking straight past the hostel! Luckily I'd seen a sign for the Harmony Hotel which is where I'm staying at the start of the tour so I went in and asked for directions.
The room is very nice and turns out I'm sharing it with a girl who's going to be on the tour with me so that's cool. Emily has been here a week already and went to the summer palace yesterday - it looks AMAZING! It's a 2 hour bus journey outside of Beijing though so unless I get to see it as part of the tour I shall miss out. She came in about 10pm and I was already in bed as I hadn't got any sleep on the plane thanks to an annoying frenchman who wouldn't stop moving and hogging all the space!
It's strangely not scary to be here. The city, although not being quite what I expected, it's drastically different from places I've seen before. The only thing I'm finding very strange is the staring! As in blatant staring! It's very intimidating! Emily says you get used to it but on my first little walk around Beijing it made me want to go running back to the hostel! I'm taking it easy today, just getting used to things so hopefully there will be a more exciting update soon!
