What do you do for 28 hours on a train? That was one of the questions going through our minds. We were shown to our cabin where we found a cubby hole above the door to store our big bags. Then we waited, we didn't really know what to do. We hoped that we wouldn't be sharing our cabin with anyone. It became clear that we were safe and alone.

A couple of minutes after the train started rumbling out of the station, a man in a uniform appeared at the door to our cabin and gave us some immigration and customs forms. He then asked for our passports, or rather, he pointed at them and said something. He then spent the better part of ten minutes examining them along with one of the train attendants. Their interest seemed to be largely concerned with our names. The "Surname" field was giving them problems. They thought that we both had the same, single name. Finally they handed our passports back and we started to fill our forms in, unsure if we would have to present them at the border or not. As it turns out, we didn't need the forms that day. That was probably a good thing as we would have had to declare our dinner to customs and they might have confiscated it.

A couple of hours into the journey the train started to get a bit cold and I made the mistake of wrapping up in a duvet. Several hours later I woke up in time for dinner. What can I say, it was a late night seeing the Eagles and I was tired. It did mean though that I wasn't tired at all when I should have gone to sleep. I was awake most of the night although I did manage to miss the sun rise.

The scenery between Hong Kong and Beijing changed quite quickly at first with the compact high rises of the former being replaced with the heavy industrial buildings of the latter. These also gave way to masses and masses of farmland after a short while and, except for Beijing itself and the few cities / towns that the train stopped in overnight, it was farmland all the way. From time to time the train ran alongside roads and a variety of vehicles, from bicycles to rickety cars to smoky trucks, went backwards and forwards. Some of the people even waved at us.

In Beijing's railway station we saw something we hadn't expected. A woman in front of us in the immigration queue argued with the immigration official, something you don't expect to see in any country really but in China we thought that it would be asking for trouble. Apparently not though. The argument seemed to be about whether the woman should remove her sunglasses and hat. She seemed to think that she didn't need to in order for her likeness to be compared with her identification. She was actually shouting at the official at one point. I was convinced that she would be taken off to an interview room and told off or something, that would probably happen if she did the same thing in the US. Strangely though, her argument must have been compelling, she got through. Wary of a publicly humiliated official taking things out on the next person in line, we meekly handed over our passports. We need not have worried, we got through with no problems.

Our first Chinese challenge was finding some local currency, something we had been led to believe we couldn't do in Hong Kong. Our search proved fruitless and we were forced to find a taxi driver who was willing to accept Hong Kong dollars. Unfortunately this meant paying slightly over the odds for the journey and we accidentally ended up not in a proper taxi but in the car of some off duty official who was obviously trying to make a little extra money. The ride took a long time as the traffic was heavy. Twice the driver had to call the hotel to ask for directions as our chosen lodging was a bit obscure. Still, we got there eventually and we were just looking forward to dropping our bags and having a shower (the train didn't have one). Our passports proved to be as perplexing to the hotel staff as they had been on the train. Our lack of local currency though was a bigger problem. One of the staff phoned someone with English skills who negotiated a quick fix for the situation.

Our room appeared very good at first. It had tidy looking beds and its own bathroom. We were slightly curious at why we were not given a door key but it seems like the system was one of asking to be let into our room. (This hasn't proved to be a problem so far as we're the only foreigners in the building and all the staff know who we are. Still, we've learned how to say our room number in Chinese just in case they forget.) On closer examination though we found quite a few long, black hairs in the corners of the room. We've stayed in many places that have been worse and the hairs didn't really bother me so we didn't make any fuss.

That night we tried, unsuccessfully, to find an internet caf?and had a very small supper as well as having a quick walk around the area. We bought a tourist map from a nearby hotel and found an ATM for some money.

The shower was a little cooler the next morning than it had been the night before but that didn't stop me getting rid of the last of my travel grime (the kind of dirtiness that you feel even after the cleanest imaginable long journey). We dropped some laundry off at a local dry cleaner's and then set off in search of Beijing's metro.

Our chosen hotel is in an area of Beijing called Dongzhimen; this also happened to be the name of the nearest metro station. After a fifteen to twenty minute walk, we found the station and managed to buy ourselves tickets. Hong Kong's efficient and shiny, new underground railway has spoiled us a bit as Beijing's system seems old looking and dirty by comparison but it does the job, and that's the important thing. Part of the reason that it feels dirty has to do with a rather annoying habit that some Chinese people have; spitting. The sound I will always associate with Beijing will be that of someone coughing up something unpleasant and spitting it out on the pavement or station platform. It's a little thing really, it can be ignored and don't let me put anyone off coming to Beijing because of it, you'd be doing yourself an injustice.

We alighted from the train at the Tiananmen East station and headed towards Tiananmen Square. It is likely that most people will remember Tiananmen Square for the protests that ended so badly in 1989. Before we arrived, that was pretty much all I knew about the place. I couldn't even remember what it looked like from the news stories all of those years ago. Now I will remember Tiananmen Square as a very big and very impressive place. Going back briefly to the events of 1989, I have to say that I only just remember it happening. I was only 14 at the time and not that concerned with what was happening in the news. Depending on who you ask, there is a different account of what happened and I doubt that any account will be completely without bias. Our China guidebook for instance glosses over the event by simply saying that "army tanks and soldiers cut down pro-democracy demonstrators". While I'm not defending the actions that were taken that day, as they were horrible, surely there's more to what happened than simple repression and violence. Another book that we have presents the event in a slightly different way. China has over 1.3 billion people living within its borders. These people nearly all have jobs and virtually no-one goes hungry, that is no easy feat. Now look at some former communist countries. Take Russia as an example. Bits of the former Soviet Union are breaking off left, right and centre. There is corruption, greed, hunger and democracy. Faced with the possibility of China breaking apart with wars springing up and people going hungry as the whole system breaks down, the Chinese government really had no choice but to quash the demonstrations. Many Chinese people might be dissatisfied with the way their country is run but they may prefer it over the uncertainties that a huge change would produce.

I've digressed a bit. So, Tiananmen Square is impressive. I got that far. We spent some time, actually a lot of time, walking around the square and taking photos. At one point I became the subject of someone else's photo. At first I thought that the young man just wanted me to take his photo with a monument behind him. Then I found out that he wanted me in the picture with him. Now I know what it feels like to be famous!

We decided that before we started filling our days with Beijing's attractions, we should book our trains to Xi'an, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We first spent an hour walking to a CITS office on our map only to find the office had closed down. We then took a train all the way across to the other side of the city centre to find another company who could organise train tickets. This time we were successful although it was getting dark by the time that we finished so we then headed back to our hotel. That night we didn't have too much to eat, just some noodles and biscuits. We managed to find the internet cafe that we had tried to find the previous day and that was about it.

Our plan for the following day was simple; see the Forbidden City and eat Peking Duck. We headed out to Tiananmen Square once again but this time crossed the road and stood beneath Chairman Mao's picture on the Tiananmen gate before venturing in to the Forbidden City. It's a very long walk from Tiananmen to the actual city itself. It took perhaps fifteen minutes. Being a Sunday it was quite busy, mostly with Chinese people, although there were a great many westerners too. We bought our tickets to go in and borrowed an audio guide too. The English language version of the guide features Roger Moore and it would have been like having 007 show us around except that my guide was playing the tape a bit too quickly and I just couldn't take him seriously at that speed.

The Forbidden City (also known as the Imperial Palace or the Palace Museum) was off limits to all but the select few until the reign of the last Emperor ended in 1911. About half of the compound is open to the public now but that's still enough to fill up a day, it's that vast. Many of the buildings were undergoing renovation while we were there, maybe because they desperately need it but I suspect that the drive to get them looking good is based more on the Olympics being held in Beijing in 2008. I'm at a bit of a loss to describe what we saw in the Forbidden City. Words don't seem adequate really. I can tell you about how the buildings are all made of wood but are covered in a sort of lacquer, making them look very sturdy and imposing. It also explains how they were built in such a short time in the 15th century. I could also tell you that they all have names relating to "harmony" and "purity". I think that the best thing is for you to look at the pictures really or, better yet, go there yourself.

Naturally we had fun jostling for position with everyone else there for the best photo opportunities or to see inside some of the buildings but our patience was usually rewarded. Occasionally though we acted local and pushed a bit or just walked where we wanted to regardless of someone else taking a photo. There were occasions when you just can't help it, in fact.

By about 4pm we were tired from all of our walking and looking forward to eating some nice duck. We started to head towards Tiananmen again and arrived back at the square just as the crowds gathered to watch the Chinese flag being lowered. We waited with them for a while before realising that the flag wouldn't be lowered until sunset and we didn't want to wait that long. We walked across Tiananmen Square towards an internet cafe that we knew was at the other end of it. Part way across we were stopped by a young Chinese man who wanted some help with an English word. He had a newspaper clipping that contained a speech given by Tony Blair recently and he wasn't sure what one part of the speech meant. We took a couple of minutes to explain to him the different meanings of the word "cause" and felt we had done a good deed for the day. It didn't end there though. He wanted to talk to us for a while longer, quite a while longer. We covered a diverse range of subjects during the 55 minute chat (we had the Olympic countdown clock next to Tiananmen Square to keep time for us). We started with how English politicians use big words to avoid making promises, went via Chinese politics (or the lack of them as far as the man was concerned), swiftly past the pleasures of a "legitimate and legally recognised married union" and ending on the use of the expression "cutting corners" and how the man would think of us every time he used it. We managed to make a hasty exit when he asked if we wanted to join him for a drink. It was fun, if a little odd, talking to him and he did keep all of the vendors with postcards and kites away from us for a while. He would say something to them in Chinese and they would disappear, apparently having lost interest in us. He explained that he was telling them we were just poor students. Unfortunately his ploy backfired one time when he explained to us again what he had said within earshot of a vendor who spoke a little English.

Having escaped, we spent a little time in an internet cafe, we then headed off in search of the famous Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. We found it without too much difficulty but its reputation meant that all of the tables were full that night. We made a reservation for the following day and allowed ourselves to be shown to one of the restaurant's other branches instead. We could have tried duck there but we decided to wait until we were in the proper restaurant and had a couple of very nice dishes instead. One of them was Pork Dumplings, another Beijing speciality, consisting of a sort of pork sausage meat and vegetables steamed inside little pastry wrappers. Mmmmmm, very tasty.

The following day was a wet one, and in more than one way. I pulled myself out of bed as usual and headed for the bathroom. As usual, I sleepily turned the shower on and started to wake up slowly. The water was slightly warmer than on previous mornings and so my shower was slightly longer too. At the end of my shower, I became aware that the bathroom bin was floating slightly on the bathroom floor. I opened the door and looked out. There appeared to be a small puddle just outside the door and I realised that the water level in the bathroom must have been just that little bit higher than the lip in the doorway. On further examination I found that the puddle was slightly bigger than I first thought and that the floor of the bedroom was sloped sufficiently to make the puddle move very slowly further into the bedroom. Not much got wet, the bottom of all four of our bags received a little water but that was it. The puddle was swiftly mopped up using our towels and we recovered well. I also pulled several large clumps of yucky black hair from the drain in the bathroom and found that the water cleared a lot quicker after that.

We decided to avoid any awkward questions that might have arisen from being in our room when it was cleaned by going out. On our way out though we remembered our laundry. We had forgotten to pick it up the night before and so we nipped around the corner to the dry cleaner. Our clothes were perhaps the cleanest we have seen them in many, many months. They were also nicely ironed and folded and packaged in crunchy plastic bags. Of course, we had to drop our laundry off at the hotel and we ended up trying to explain our flooding issues to the girl who let us into our room. Miming the flooding and subsequent clean up of a bathroom to someone is quite entertaining to watch. Luckily it was me that did the watching as Claire tried her best. I think though that her efforts were lost on the poor girl.

So, besides being wet inside the hotel, it was wet outside. The sky was a rather miserable grey colour and couldn't make up its mind whether or not it should rain on us. We headed to Dongzhimen station with umbrellas up and then took a train to the next station on the track. Just around the corner from the station we found the Lama Temple. Our freezing hands struggled with the audio guides that we borrowed and we weren't indoors as much as we had hoped but the rain stayed away for most of the time that we were there. The temple is the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet and apparently the most colourful temple in Beijing. The complex was quite large and we spent well over an hour walking around, examining the buildings and listening to our guides.

Our next stop of the day was Qianmen via the metro again. Once at the station just south of Tiananmen Square, we walked a long way further south in search of Tiantan Park (also known as The Temple of Heaven). It took at least 45 minutes to get there and the rain once again held off. We purchased tickets to get into the park and wandered towards the gate. We spent several minutes trying to work out which gate we had actually found and decided upon the west gate. As we approached it and the lady checked our tickets, she told us where we were. She had obviously been watching us.

My first impressions of the park were good and I'd like to thank our friend Jake, originally from Beijing, for recommending it and, while I'm at it, also for all of his help with language and his other suggestions too. The park is made up of many wide, tree lined avenues that lead to various beautiful buildings and temples. The 200+ hectare park was originally created as a venue for the Emperor to pray for good harvests once a year, one of the few trips that he'd make outside the Forbidden City. Several minutes into our wanderings we found the Fasting Palace and stopped for a few minutes to admire the restoration work that was going on. The same red lacquer that featured in the Forbidden City and the Lama Temple was being made nearby and transported in wheelbarrows (well, something similar) to the freshly repaired walls. We watched the lacquer being made for a while until we were noticed and we carried on to prevent the workers being too distracted.

Some time later we arrived at the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Circular Mound Altar. These were populated much more by tour groups and local people than the Fasting Palace was but they were still great to see. We looked around for a while and then headed northwards towards the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. On the way along the Danbi Bridge, a long raised section with flags along its length. By this time the grey clouds had given way to some clearing skies and the sun even put in a brief appearance. As the sun started to go down we took plenty of photos to make up for the dark skies earlier and started to head back towards Qianmen.

After a visit to an internet caf?it was quickly time for us to sample Peking duck for the first time. We were both quite hungry and both looking forward to trying the renowned Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. We arrived precisely on time and were quickly shown to a table. Thinking that Peking duck would be similar in size to Crispy Aromatic duck we only ordered half a duck. We were asked if we were sure about that and we were eventually persuaded to order a vegetable dish too, we went for asparagus and mushrooms.

The man with the duck trolley arrived approximately ten minutes later and started to prepare our duck for us just a few feet away from the table. The ducks are roasted whole with just their feathers, innards and feet removed. When they are carved, the head is removed first and then the meat is carved from the body. The meat from half a duck turned out to be a lot less than we had expected but what was more disturbing was that the restaurant included the head, or half of the head in our case, with the duck meat. As nice as it it to try new things, half a duck's head didn't appeal too much and we left it on the plate. We weren't sure though if it was worse having the side with the eye facing us or the inside of the head visible so we tried not to think about it.

The duck itself was very tasty indeed. As with Crispy Aromatic duck it is eaten in pancakes with onions and a sauce that we're told should have been yellow bean sauce. It was a bit like marmite in appearance but very tasty anyway so I'm not too worried what it was. On the down side the meat was quite fatty and we had to remove quite a bit of fat because there was just too much of it. As nice as it was, I think I prefer Crispy Aromatic duck over Peking duck just a bit but I'd be happy to eat either.

On the way out of the restaurant we asked how many ducks they got through in one day as we had seen many of them carved in our section of the restaurant alone. Apparently they get through a staggering 800 of them a day. That's a lot of ducks!

On the way back to our hotel we took a detour through Tiananmen Square and took some night time photos because we could although it was now very, very cold. Fortunately we had purchased some gloves earlier on the day otherwise our fingers would have dropped off by then.

Next on our list is Fragrant Hills Park and of course we still have the Great Wall to visit. Stay tuned...