In China!

So I made it! The journey was fairly uneventful, other than nearly landing in Frankfurt then the plane whoosing back up at a steep incline straight after touch down. Given how much I travel it's a little surprising that this is the first time something like that has happened to me. I never did work out what had happened as the announcement afterwards was primarily in German...

When I arrived in Beijing it was raining - which I've been told is very rare. Apparently the last time they had rain was in October so I think I must have brought it with me! It did clear up enough for me to go for a little walk once I'd have a couple of hours sleep: I usually sleep well on planes but I just couldn't get comfy, despite having much more leg room than on the flight I normally take to and from Philly.

The hotel is very near the Olympic stadium so I wandered down to have a look. It's all a bit of a building site at the moment though. It was also incredibly foggy (which I later found out was smog not fog) so visibility was very poor. Apparently you can get a better view if you walk just another 5 minutes around the corner, so if the visibility gets better I may wander round at some point to take some more photos.

I then wandered the other way a bit to see what was there. And was highly amused to discover that just across from the hotel is McDonalds, a KFC and a Pizza Hut all next door to each other! The Starbucks craze hasn't really caught on though - whilst on my journeys so far I've seen numerous of the above chains but only seen 2 Starbucks! :) For all it amuses me in one way I actually find it quite sad too. Oh well, I suppose you can't stop 'progress'...