Beijing - the spitting city
Arriving in any city by rail is always a baptism of fire, as soon as you leave the train you are engulfed in the sights, smells and local people.

As in Russia there are clearly the people who have and those who have not, which isn't my understanding of communism, but then neither was the vast sparkling neon lit shopping areas of central Beijjing. There is obviously a lot of work taking place in the suburbs to clean the place up for the Olympics, mostly involving flattening the local houses and erecting apartment blocks, which could make for some interesting social changes.

We all know Chinese people are generally smaller than Europeans, but did you know they spend the majority of their waking day spitting huge mouthfulls of phlegm onto the pavement? I guess Dick Whittington didn't fancy a trip to Beijing where the streets are paved with spit. Obviously had to join in, despite being a local tradition it didn't quite feel right, will have to practice.

Just across the street from our hotel was a market selling raw, boiled or fried 'items that are barely alive / barely dead'. Couldn't bring ourselves to try delicacies such as locust, whole hearts, silk-worms, snakes and of course the inevitable goat testicles (pierced with a wooden skewer, the thought of which made me shudder). Opted for a much less retch-worthy Peking Duck. (served with legs and feet intact, so not quite as safe as we imagined).

Following days we visited the temple of heaven and had a stroll around some parks. Starting to grow tired of temples, which doesn't bode well, fortunately not bored of beer.

Left Beijing at 4am for our silly travel day. Beijing to HongKong, HongKong to Taipai, Taipai to Osaka topped off with a rail journey arriving Kyoto around 9pm.

More on Kyoto and Tokyo next time. Internet access in Japan is fantastic, China's is appalling, something to do with the government shutting the cafes down to prevent capitalism corrupting the people! If it stops them spitting I would have thought it worth the risk...

- posted by Adrian @ 7:03:00 AM