My journey to Beijing started in Seoul, where I boarded the subway for Incheon. Unlike to journey to Seoul, the journey away from it could be done entirely underground. Once I had got to Incheon, I walked around for a bit to figure out where I was and finally found the ferry terminal. Things were relatively painless; I gave my passport to the woman behind the counter, who printed off the ticket for my reservation. I’d planned things slightly better this time, in that I knew roughly where I was going and what I was doing once I’d got to China.

The journey across the Yellow Sea was also pretty straightforward. The ferry was much bigger and the sea wasn’t as rough, so we set off almost on time. There were three people in my room, which could take a maximum of 4, but one of the people was sleeping on the floor. When I came back to the cabin later on, there were some extra people that I hadn’t seen before and everyone was sitting around the table on the floor. I got my first introduction to Chinese people, along with some Chinese lessons.

When we arrived in Qingdao, the bloke who was sleeping on the floor pointed me in the direction of an ATM machine, where I could get money out for the taxi. After returning to the ferry terminal, the same bloke got in a taxi and told the remaining taxi driver that I wanted a taxi ride to the station for 10 RMB. Once he had departed, the taxi driver instantly upped it to 20 RMB, so I decided to walk away. After deciding that I really did need a taxi, I returned to the taxi rank and managed to haggle the cost down to 15 RMB. That was my first experience of haggling in a currency I had no idea the value of!

Once I’d got to the train station, I found the ticket office and managed to speak to the woman who only did plane bookings, but I think she had access to the train booking system and passed a telephone under the glass, so that I could speak to someone who knew English. The aeroplane woman then put some instructions together, which she passed to another woman, who was working in the train department. I paid for the ticket and then went and found somewhere to eat.

After getting my ticket checked countless times and being metal detected by two security staff simultaneously (which the police woman found funny), I got on my train to Beijing. I sat next to Timmy, who, apparently, I sat in the same restaurant with at lunch. He was the regional manager for a refrigeration company and gave me some advice on where to visit in China. This was my first valuable bit of advice from a real Chinese person.

In Beijing, I found my hostel, which, handily, was listed in the Lonely Planet guide, as my laptop battery had run out and I hadn’t written any instructions. It was lovely. I was the only one there and it was like a hotel; clean, quiet and with friendly staff. As I wrote in my original blog post, it was also a tea house and had a dog and a ceramic bowl with two fish in it. After reading my guide, looking at the map and trying to assimilate all of the information, I went for a walk. The differences with Seoul were already apparent: the people and the buildings looked different and the mood was also different. It was very exciting.

I spent a week in Beijing in the end, as there was a lot to do, it was a good place to get myself organised and I’d had a fairly hectic trip up until then. I spent the time:

• walking around the Jingshan Park and the Forbidden City
• going to the Olympic Park (and getting inside the Bird’s Nest!)
• going to the Summer Palace
• wandering around Hutongs
• seeing Chairman Mao and Tiananmen Square
• haggling with shop owners in the Silk Market
• going to the night market (and eating a deep-fat fried scorpion!)
• visiting the Great Wall.

All of these made for a fantastic visit to Beijing.