Day 1 in Beijing

What a day!!! What a huge day. Not so long ago I was trying to keep warm and dry whilst walking around Melbourne. 10 minutes ago I was trying to keep cool walking around Beijing in the incredible heat and humidity!

The flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong was relaxing (in fact it was so relaxing that I slept from about 20 minutes after take-off to about 15 minutes before landing). The scenery around Hong Kong is spectacular!! I need to get back there and look around properly sometime soon! The flight on Dragonair from Hong Kong to Beijing was also enjoyable. I landed 20 minutes early, got through passport control etc. and met Sha!

We took a taxi to my hotel (from which I can see her house), checked-in and then went across the road for some baozi, took a taxi to the subway station and caught a couple of very crowded trains to the Beijing Capital Museum. The building housing the museum was huge and very modern!! The exhibitions were impressive - lots of objects that were thousands of years old!! When we had seen the entire museum we bought some lotus plants to eat and then headed back on the subway system. We took a taxi to an amazing restaurant which provided us with the best Chinese dish that I've eaten so far!! It was basically a lot of Szechuan peppers stir-fried with chicken and various vegetables!! Wonderful! We then had another drink before walking back through the universities to the hotel!

I'm now ready for bed.

Oh no!! I was going to add to this blog one or two phrases from the hotel regulations which always make me laugh. Unfortunately, I think that I'm going to have to write down all of them:

Safety and fire protection

1. Please do not take gun, fodder, fireworks, radioactivity, causticity and dangerous into hotel.

2. Please do not use oil, alcohol and all kinds of electrical wiring in the guest room

3. Please do not throw smoke and match and do not burn things in room.

4. Do not allowed gambling, freak out, bawdry in guestroom.

5. If fire and emergence happened, please do not panic. Leave according to the safe ling.

(For you sake made some emergence happened, you should compensate the lost of hotel. If the emergence made serious sequent, you would be charge by judicatory."

--- it's good to know that the safety rules are clear. If they weren't I might start freaking out or introducing some fodder into my room.

Oh ... "In raining ,if you need umbrella service ,please contact with reception" and if I need my "turkish towel" washed it will cost 10 yuan. My carpet would only cost 28 yuan to clean if I'd brought it with me.

Good night!