We were up and about earlier than normal this morning and paid the hotel for our stay. I think we got the manager this morning and he was confused by us foisting money on him. Unfortunately our guidebook doesn't have the word for 'deposit' in it. We really have to get a phrasebook. The hotel kept the Hong Kong money from last night. We'll try to get it back sometime. Then we pointed to the phrase asking for a laundry service and the manager acted as if I had asked him personally to wash my clothes. For all I know, I might have done! We found the laundry down the road and they told us to collect it tomorrow. Then we went out to find the internet we'd been given directions to.

It wasn't where they said, but by this time we were hungry. My attempts to buy bananas drew a small crowd, but I got there in the end. Our walk took us past tiny shops that looked like they'd been there for fifty years, and a lot of modern apartment blocks. The roads were all quite wide and filled with ancient bikes. We found the subway system and successfully managed to buy tickets and squeeze onto the crowded train.

I didn't really like the subway as it was full of people coughing and sneezing and generally felt like it was swarming with germs. We alighted at Tienanmen Square and stopped to plan our time in China. An old beggar stood in front of us for twenty minutes with a bowl, ignoring us ignoring him and occasionally thrusting the bowl closer to us. He only moved away about a minute before we had finished.

Tienanmen Square was much bigger than I had expected, and surrounded by busy roads and huge squat buildings on all sides. We'll explore them all properly in the next few days. The square was full of people, all taking photos or selling things to tourists. It was also full of lumps of spit, which I tried to ignore, and the sound of people adding more to the pavement. Every step we took we were accosted by people offering Chairman Mao watches or books and packs of postcards. I was more interested in the gorgeous kites flying high above the square, including those shaped like octopuses that even swam through the sky like an octopus should. You know what I mean.

We took a few pictures of the Mao Mausoleum building (closed right now) and a couple of Chinese guys wanted Mikey to take a picture of them. They actually wanted to take a photo of Mikey with them, which was quite funny. Next to me an old man with a dirty jacket and greasy hair patted the wall beside him and winked at me - I managed not to understand the gesture and Mikey saved me.

We then went in search of breakfast, which is becoming a bit of an issue. We've only been having two meals a day, which is fine, but generally both meals have involved some sort of fried meat and rice. I really want a bowl of Frosties! We had decided to find the duck restaurant that Jake recommended tonight, it's just off Tiananmen Square, so we thought we'd go to a noodle bar for a quick bowl of breakfast to tide us over. The man in a suit outside took us all the way through the noodle bar to the restaurant above, and we ended up eating fried meat and rice for breakfast and deciding not to have duck tonight. We ate a lot but it was lovely, much more like Chinese food should be!

We then went to find the Chinese International Tourist Services building to book our tickets to various parts of the country well in advance. The map said it shouldn't be much more than a mile. An hour and a half later we were still walking. The roads were lovely and wide. Although the sky was white and hazy and it was quite cold, it smelled gorgeously of autumn - leaves and bonfires and mist. It was really nice to have proper seasonal weather for once! We walked past an old man on a corner, holding a reel of kite string. We couldn't see the kite for ages - it was about 700 feet up in the sky! We also walked past some traditional Chinese houses, in litle alleys called hutong. They were all made of brick and slate and from above, when we crossed the roads on pedestian bridges, they were just a jumble of dusty roofs. When we arrived at CITS the office wasn't just closed, it was dismantled and in pieces in an empty room. They have a dreadful reputation for unhelpfulness anyway; this was just another manifestation of it!

We took the subway to the other tourist office and the nice lady there had booked three trains for us in less than ten minutes. We can even arrive in Hong Kong by train on the same day we fly to India, a feat of logistical brilliance, we thought. Watch as it all goes horribly wrong! We paid for half of the tickets now, and we can pay the rest when we pick them up. A very satisfying evening!

We took the subway back to the hotel and then went to find the internet cafe. The route we took was very dark but we went down some lovely leafy alleyways with huge apartments along them. We found the internet by accident as we turned round, deciding it wouldn't be here. We spent a smokey hour or so checking two days of mail, and then picked up some more snacks from the shop (someone ate our cakes from yesterday while we were out today. We had six in the box and there were only two left this evening. It's quite funny cos they weren't very nice!) and once again had jasmine tea and biscuits in the hotel. I'm not as impressed with the place now - their website says they have laundry, internet and a travel desk and that they are 400m from the subway, none of which is true. But it's not too bad. We're going to see the Forbidden City tomorrow, or The Palace Museum as it's called here.