We have just taken a train across five timezones. Very weird. Wisely we stocked up for the trip with two wine boxes (6ltrs), a bottle of vodka and some pot noodles to smooth the passage. End of day one we are one box and some of the voddy down. The trip wasn't as bad as we imagined. The smuggling and selling of jeans, umbrellas, trainers made the seven hours at the Russian border simply fly by.

All Russian trains operate on Moscow time. This resulted in me drinking wine before 9 in the morning. No changes there. However I have never had train lag before.

So all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Now lets go and see a dead politician and get a plane home.

See you all in the pub laters.

P & S. 

We have been all over the olympic building site that is Beijing. If I could show you pictures I would be able to share with you many wonderful old buildings covered in scaffolding. Oh look the (for)hidden city.

We scored ourselves a super cheap hotel in Beijing. It was a third of the price of the LP recommend hostel so was not to be sniffed at despite my misgivings when the the tout who took us there from the train station said I was very pretty. Something S found quite amusing and I found quite concerning especially after he knocked on our door late the first night and I answered the door in my silk (ooh fancy) liner. The door remained double locked with the chain in place for the remainder of the visit.

We passed our nights by sneeking into the bar of the expensive hostel down the road, drinking their expensive accommodation subsidised cheap beer and watching England get booted out of the world cup. Shame, nice pizza though and very reasonable prices. Plus no men commenting on the colour of my eyes.

We wandered the Great Wall. We had been strongly recommended to go on a 10km walk over a section of steep decaying wall. "It is so awe inspiring scenery" etc. Instead we took the view that going to the great wall is about seeing the wall rather than the scenery and decided to ignore all those right on backpackers and go to a part of the wall that had been fully rebuilt to its past glory. We have seen enough ruins. It makes a change to see these things as they were meant to be rather than as a pile of bricks. I also liked the cable car and giant slide ride all the way down to the carpark. I certainly wouldn't have imagined them to have existing in the days of Ghengis Khan if they hadn't been rebuilt.

So we wave China a pleasant goodbye and head to Mongolia. No more will we have to worry if we have just ordered snakes arseholes with rice. We also leave with this piece of pub trivia. We discovered this as we walked back to our hotel one balmy evening. You don't skin a dog, you pluck a dog.

So we embarked on the first leg of the Trans Mongolian Railway and have made it to Mongolia. We weren't too sure what the train would be like so we stocked up with cheap booze and pot noodles. So the trip went ok. It was only 32hrs and we are not looking forward to the next leg, non-stop to Moscow. We have managed to source some red wine boxes here in Ulaanbaatar which may help matters somewhat.

UB is a pleasant change. It is pretty much drab Russian town architecture but as it is up in the hills it has clean air and it is hot but not humid. This is nice compared to the humidity and murk of Beijing. We can breath.

Tomorrow we are off to a Ger for a couple of nights. Pronounced Gear not Grr. This is a Mongolian tent. Not quite sure why we are leaving our brick lined room for a tent, even less clear why it costs more to stay in a tent than our dry, brick lined room with DVD and supermarket next door but it is the "must do" thing in Mongolia.

Undoubtedly I will hate it, especially as I only have flip flops and I am promised lots of outdoors fun involving wild flea factory horses. The Mongolian man does love his horses. Atleast the men aren't calling me pretty.

Oh talking of flip flops. I have a new towel! This is towel number three on this trip. Towel I was left somewhere in Australia, probably drying on a tree. It was not a sad loss. I am sure I shared with you how using it was like being licked by a cat. It was the no brand kind of travel towel. Towel II, now she was a beauty. She was the Nasa travel towel. Compact and shiny. No cat tongue roughness with that baby. She however got blown of a balcony whilst drying in Shanghai. We mourn her loss but needs must and so we now have Towel III. The less said about Towel III the better. Oh yes she looked ok in the shop in her little packet. Just like Towel I in fact. However we never factored in we were in China. So I now have a China Space Program towel. If you know the story of the Nasa ballpoint pen that can right upside down and in space and cost millions to develop versus the Russian solution, a pencil. Well Towel III is similar. Rather than develop a highly absorbant, compact micro fibre the Chinese have a different solution to making a travel towel small. They makr the towel smaller. It is genius in its simplicity. Towel III is normal material but no larger than a hankerchief. Again much laughter from S.

You may have noticed an increase in blogging frequency. Some may think that my blogging dropped off as I got further away. This isn't the case. Basically I blogged more in S America as there was nothing else to do. Blogging dropped off proportionally to the things to do. So Australia it slumped but stayed consistent due to a balance between things to do versus the cost of doing anything in Australia. In SE Asia it dropped off as everything was cheap and they don't have internet on the beach. My blogging in India was low as a result of the piss poor internet not the abundance of things to do (apart from eating samosas) as they didn't really have internet. China also has little to actually do once you have seen the old things (NO I don't mean S) except drink beer and blog. 

So I am back and I may be boring.

Why aren't I drinking instead of blogging? I know a few of you raised an eyebrow. Fear not I am doing both in a multi tasking style! One great difference between China and India, India two PC's and a cow. China 400 PC's, pool tables and waiter service!

We have a train at 19:20 and we have sat in this internet hangar drinking beer all day at 10p/hour and beer at 30p/a large bottle. I am slightly sloshed. S is asleep under her monitor. She looks so sweet.

Drinking. Ah the sweet booze. As it isn't cheap to drink at a bar over here we pretty much don't and save our quality drinking time for the lonely solitude of our room. That isn't a problem for accomplished boozers and as we just get stared anywhere apart from McD's it is light relief. Our night drinking cheap beer and eating nuts on a street kerb caused quite a stir let me tell you. I expect we will made it into next weeks edition of the Xi'an local paper we turned so many heads.

Now if I can just get streaming video to work... WAITRESS!!

We went to the terracotta army today. Unfortuantely I can't post any pictures at present. It is either 20six or China firewalls. They were very nice though, trust me.

Not at all like gnomes.

www.jesusandtheworldcup.com

For when England gets knocked out. Let God step in and support you. Unless you are gay or a woman but as neither are real football fans it shouldn't matter.

We are now in Xi'an, site of the terracota army. We haven't been to see it yet as we are kings of lazy but we have high hopes for tomorrow. Probably early afternoon unless it is too hot.

We spent last week dossing down at Lee and Annies home in Shanghai. We met Lee in the Philippines and one drunken night we are sure he invited us to come visit and as we were in the area we though we would call in, unpack, generally make a mess, eat their food, use the washing machine (that was S not me), and drink their beer (that also was S and not me). It is worth mentioning that never met Annie before we unloaded our clothes in her washing machine so she needs extra credit for not throwing a fit at our appearance.

Lee is something in the city. That is something I have always wanted to say. I am still none the wiser as to what it means though. I used to have this idea that it was to do with stocks and shares but from my week observing Lee I think it is more to do with knowing people that own bars and restuarants or have access to press passes to events with free beer. Why didn't they put that on the sheet at careers day? I wonder.

We came to Xi'an by plane. This wasn't planned. Much like most of our journey. Annie is Chinese, this has obvious advantages and she was able to score us plane tickets for less than train tickets! 12hrs on a sleeper train or 2hrs on a plane. BONUS.

Annie's travel service will be sadly missed although we have managed to get our next train booked which is a relief as China can be complicated. It isn't as hassled as India but they don't do English as well. In fact you can't compare the two. Any analyst who compares China with India for who is going to be the next economic power has never been to both countries. There is no comparison, China is going to be the one. Unless something really weird happens. All eyes on USA.

Food. Mmmm. Well. Yes. In four nights we have been to two different Chinese parties, both for childrens birthdays and both were celebrating their second birthdays. Bit of a coincidence. Another coincidence was that we frightened both of them to tears. The white devils that we are. They wouldn't come into the room on either occasions. We honkies went outside for the blowing out of the candles. Food. Oh yes. I have eaten it all. Dad you would be proud, Mum I apologise now if this menas Dad can try and get tripe on the menu for Sunday lunch. Lets just leave it at chewwwwwy. Whilst I am reminded. Did I mention I ate a grasshopper/bug thing and a frog last month? In the same vein. Crunchy.

Oh yes and Lee who has lived here for seven years had a McD's on his way home from the meal. He had been on a VIP all the Guinness you can pour into you England all stars rugby junket that afternoon but still. Bad form. As were the vodka drinks he poured later. Hic.

We also managed a night in front of the TV. I treated S to a bottle of wine. I am sure you appreciate how S needs abit of TLC every now and then. So it was delivery pizza and a bottle of finest Chinese red. At one pound twenty a bottle it was quite sweet but if you concentrated and tried to imagine you were drinking port it wasn't half bad.

This isn't as exciting as my flip flop news but my second watch of the trip curled up last week. Enough is enough I finally decided I can't keep buying watches that cost three pounds and I complain when they stop working after five months. Call me reckless as I know you will and I know I shouldn't have but I couldn't help myself but I just came over all funny and I got myself a Rolex. It is however dead smart. I just wonder how long it will last, especially as I forgot to take it off in the shower this morning and it might not be waterproof.

In case I am coming over all ME ME ME what with my expensive Rolex and the cheap wine let me show you my caring side. I donated my new sunglasses to S. I say donate as It makes me look giving but it fact it went something like this. Rewind to Bangkok and S has lost her third pairs of glasses on this trip (yes Three, 3, THREE). She buys a fourth pair of cheapish Diesel sunnies. No knock offs for miss fancy pants (as far as sunglasses go, we need 100% UV protection, can't you smear suncream on 'em?). Fast forward to Shanghai and Decathlon. Pat's UK Decathlon sunglasses are still on his head, the left arm is very wobbly and you can't see much when wearing them but importantly they are still on his head, but he begrudgingly shops for some more. No brand name for him, oh no, less than a fiver for Pat, oh yes, they'll do nicely.

We haven't left the carpark before they are on S's face. Look out for photo's (I will put some on I promise). I'll be wearing glasses that cost two pound twenty my eyes will be frying in ever picture and I look like John Lennon whereas S will be looking very dapper indeed in ones that cost five pounds. As an aside if you notice I have developed a stoop in the pictures it will be the weight of my back pack as it has acquired the extra load of a pair of Diesel sunglasses and the dust they are gathering!

I surely spoil that woman.

ps. If S send out one of her poisonous emails (not long after she reads this blog entry) and if it contains reference to something the youth of today call a PSP and my having bought one. IT IS ALL HOGWASH.