Beijing, China
After a smooth, quick ride to Sydney airport from Campbelltown (thanks for the lift to the station Ros), we couldn’t believe our luck at the AirAsia checkin counter…no waiting lines! Evidently we beat the rush by about 10 minutes. Flight to KL was good as we managed a spare seat between us. A four hour wait and then a very full plane to Beijing, arriving 4:30am with directions to our accommodation…but checkin was not for hours! Surprisingly we negotiated the subway, up and down elevators and changed train lines three times… (thank goodness for colour-coding!) We found our Hutong accommodation without too much stress. So we left our bags and wandered down the back streets past the Forbidden City, which looks very close on the map, but the blocks are huge! Stopped for lunch at the busiest noodle house in the area and pointed at a couple of dishes…still not sure what Lionel had! It’s 8:30pm and time for some sleep…been awake for about 36 hours!