13th August: Japan again

We were awake early so we decided to get the day off to an early start. Since Rich was a late edition to the trip and he has no idea where we are going or what our plans are, he is getting a bit confused. He keeps saying that he loves being in Japan.

''When I see the people on the street, with the eyes and all, I just presume we're in Japan.'' (I think we should have gone through the trip with him before we left Ireland because he seemed very shocked when he found out that we would also be going to Vietnam.)

We attempted to rent bikes for the day but the guy was a total prick. Lazy out, didn't want to help us at all. So, we headed off in search of the Summer Palace.

This place is amazing. Set beside a lake it is by far the most beautiful sight in Beijing.

We spent hours around the palace and even rented a pedalo on the lake. The place was packed full of chinese tourists. Not a westerner in sight. You'd tend to forget that with 1.2 billion people some of them must be tourists.

From there it was over to the Lama temple, the most impressive Buddist temple I've seen. It's huge! Every builing houses a giant Budda, with the biggest Budda housed in the very last building. To give you the scale of it, since no photos are allowed (and I nearly got Kung Fu'd in to next week) his eye was as tall as me!

We rushed back to the hostel and Rich collapsed onto the bed. Me and Fi went to find the famous Chinese opera but ended up being taken down a really dark, intimidating alley which we got out of as quick as we could. No opera but an adventure none the less. Rich was still asleep when we got back and slept till morning.

12th August: Day two

After 12 hours sleep we eventually got up and decided to get off to a good start. We went down the street and into a chineese restaurant for breakfast. The menu was all in chineese so all we could do was point. It is the biggest language barrier I have come across in my travels and explaining things only got worse as the trip went on.

It was straight to the Forbidden Palace from there.

It looks a lot more impressive from outside with the massive portrait of Mao looking over Tianamen Square. Inside, there isn't much to see and the museums are very badly laid out with artifacts that were not that interesting at all. What was amazing was the scale of the place though. We were walking for hours around it and i'd say we missed a lot. The designs on the roofs were the most spectacular with unbelievabe artwork. From there, it was on to the Heavenly Gate Palace. Our mission was to get there using only public transport which we did with ease, as the subway and bus system in the city is a dream. Travelling around I was completely shocked. It was not as I had imagined China to be. Really modern, spotlessly clean and not as crowded as you would expect.

We arrived at the Heavenly Gate Palace to find that it was closed but we walked around the park and got to see the main sights anyway.

After a heavy day's walking we had a few beers (Tsingtao beer, gorgeous stuff at 30 cent a pint) and headed to the bed.

11th August: Day one

I woke up and we were an hour from Hong Kong. We transfered to the Beijing flight with great ease as the airport is very well layed out, with plenty of English signs.

In Beijing we got the bus into the city. The bus passed Tianamen Square where literally hundreds of thousands of people had gathered to watch the lowering of the flag at sunset. We jumped off the bus and hopped on the 52, in the wrong direction! We jumped off again and got on the right bus. We then had to get on bus no. 2 to get to the hostel. We showed the driver the name and he seemed to know. He dropped us off in the middle of no where! Since we didn't have the name written down in English no taxi driver could help us.

By some stroke of luck, two french girls passed and we asked them if they knew where the hostel was. They had been there a day ago and had a card. So, they put us in a taxi and showed the driver the card and in a matter of minutes we were at the hostel.

Club sandwich + Beer + Day of travelling = BED

10th August:China at last

I looked out the window and saw Dave Murray getting on to a bus, he has arrived in Dubai and is staying in my old apartment. I ran down and met all the Newbie's heading off for their orientation day. None of them have stepped outside for more than a few seconds because of the heat.

For the rest of the day I lay by the pool hoping that today would go smoothy compared to yesterday.

They did and we got on the plane after a few pints in the Irish village. The flight was excellent, huge seats, good food. I took some travel advice and took a pillow from the plane which would prove invaluable in later days!

9th August: The trip begins.

Not that hungover I went down to the Embassy to collect by new shiny Vietnam visa while leaving Rich to sleep off the Bullfrogs. Did some last minute shopping before heading to the airport at 10pm. We arrived a bit early so our flight number had no gate yet but we went through security checks anyway. An hour later we were told that the flight was cancelled. At first we were disappointed but then we realized that they would have to put us up in a hotel for the night.

We went down to the China Southern office but it was closed and there was no staff to be found. No one in the whole airport could tell us why the plane was cancelled and when we rang the head office of China Southern no one would answer. Since tomorrow is a holy day the office would not be open tomorrow either. We made a quick decision and booked a flight to Beijing the following day. We lost out on 100 euro but our other option was to stay in Dubai for the next China Southern flight which was a week away. We went back to the apartment.

A bad start.

8th August: Back in Dubai

Woke up early and headed down to the Vietnam embassy to get our visa's sorted. We were told that at 7.00 it would be dry because of Mohammed's assention into heaven (or something) so we headed to Fiber's for a liquid lunch. At 5 we found out that the dates had been mixed up so it wasn't dry at all. We headed to Mall of Emirates to watch the new Simpsons movie which for me, as not the greatest fan, did not live up to expectation. Although saying this, you can never judge a film in Dubai since you don't know how much they censor out. Heading back to the apartment we convinced Liz and Natasha to come out with us, so we had a few drinks before heading to Rock Bottom. The bouncers told me the next time I come I should dress more appropriately. Of all places to hear that! We introduced Rich to Bullfrogs and he drank 5 of them. The record! We met some Emirates crowd and they came back to the apartment for a bit of a party. Tame enough. One of the girls introduced herself like this:

Emirates girl: Hi, I work for Emirates, what's your name?
Me: I am not going to buy you a drink.
Emirates girl: Well, I'll find someone who will! Emirates girls never have to buy a drink!
Me: ..........ok........

In fairness to the girl, she was right. Someone did buy her a drink. A bit sad though that you have to introduce yourself as your job to get someone to talk to you.

Hi, I'm a Mechanical Engineer.......want to talk.....

Foot and Mouth

Day one saw an early riser as I had to be in Shannon for a 7am flight. When I got there I ended up going on a different flight as my flight was delayed somewhere over the atlantic in a traffic jam or something, I won't go into details. So I arrived in Dublin early and half way down an escalator I spotted that they're were mats put down for the foot and mouth thing and a big sign telling everyone about the outbreak in England. The guy in front of me was shuffling around a bit before he leaped clean over the mats. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he didn't want to get his new shoes dirty! Deadly serious! He then made a remark I will not forget. ''Sure, humans can't get foot and mouth anyway.''

I met up with Fi and Rich in Dublin airport and we boarded the 12.15 flight to Dubai. The flight was alright, the usual Aerlingus shite. The hostesses looked like they didn't want to be there. It was a scorching 47 degrees when we landed at 10.30pm. Met Liz and Natasha going through customs and headed back to their apartment for the night.