To Beijing and Beyond!

Tiananmin Squre team photo

Hi all, it's been a week since we left OZ!  So much had happened by the second day of the tour, that we all felt as if we'd been here over a week then!  Now, however, we can already feel the end of the tour coming all too quickly!

Has been a whirlwind tour so far, so there hasn't been much down time to be able to blog. Also, as access to social media sites are blocked in China, we haven't been able to Facebook, blog, twitter and even email, until today. I’ve found a way around emailing, so finally able to get stuff "out of the country"! :-) 

I won't write too much, only that China has been nothing like what I feared and a lot of what I expected. I've been able to type a quick summary of our days to spike on Skype, so I've cut and pasted that at the bottom of this email for anyone that's interested.

The main points of interest have been of course the climb up the Great Wall, which I'm still suffering from 2 days later!! :-0  Arguably, the most surreal moment so far was calling and talking to Spike from on top of the Great Wall!.

Coming in to land

Haze over Beijing

The shocking air pollution in Beijing. However, after being in Tianjin for a couple of days, we now realize how good we had it in Beijing! I'm currently sitting in our room with stinging eyes and stuffed sinuses and Helen has one very bloodshot eye which came on today, that we are treating with eye drops.  The traffic, which we thought was chaos in Beijing, but now realize, was at least organized chaos. Tianjin on the other hand is totally disorganized chaos! Helen has said that the drive into the city was the most frightening experience she's ever had to endure. No line markings, cars weaving in and out jostling for pole position dangerously close and horns blaring.

Anyway that's all for now, it's 11:30pm here and I have to go down for breakfast at about 6:30am, so need to get some rest. Apologies for the impersonal group email, but all I can manage at the moment. Oh I forgot, the soccer has been good too! Grants playing well and has improved over the stay. Has scored 4 goals and got a few assists. The team has won two and lost two and they still have 3 games to play. 

OK better get this off, love to All! See you back in oz in about a week! XX