Richard writes:
So after our DPRK adventure we returned to China and Beijing. On crossing the Chinese border it felt like returning home, we relaxed and felt at ease in our Chinese surroundings. We checked into the same hostel we had stayed before the trip, and yet again its convenient location was a god send, a two minute walk from Beijing Central Train Station. To be honest, it is a good thing its location is so good as it is about the only thing going for it, the staff are rude and the mattresses are about as thick as flat noodles.
We spent our day of arrival back in Beijing in a western style cafe sipping drinks and using their wifi to upload our DPRK photos onto Dropbox so they could be viewed on the blog. We also visited a market where I bought a warm jacket after checking the very chilly weather forecast for the Mongolian desert that we will be visiting a week later. A Chinese meal later and that was the sum of our day, a very lazy one that we felt we deserved after the hectic time we had had in DPRK.
The next two days were equally quiet, though we managed to fit in a bit of sight seeing amongst doing some washing, sorting out our bags and visiting a post office to send some of our souvenirs back to the UK. We visited the Great Hall of the People (the Chinese "Parliament"), Beihai Park (the site of Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai's Chinese capital) and the Police museum. Amongst this, we were lucky enough to catch up with friends from the DPRK trip for dinner on two nights. As much as Casey and I enjoy each other's company, it is great to spend time with other people too!
So with a sad farewell to Beijing and China overall after having an amazing time in the country we are on the K3 train from Beijing Central bound for Ulaanbaatar (arriving 30 hours later). I am writing this eight hours into the journey and so far so good. We have free meal tickets and a cabin to ourselves. Mongolia and our ninth country of the trip; here we come!!!
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