Hungry and tired, we decided to have a short nap while the changing to tires (as the tracks in China are different) were taking place in Inner Mongolia (which is under China’s control) at around 10.30pm last night.

By the time most of us woke up, dinner-less, it was 7.30am this morning and the view outside was a grey industrial town with rubbish strewn on the side of the street. Thankfully the scenery got better afterwards, to include picturesque Chinese towns like the ones you see in Jackie Chan movies, mountain-y countryside with terraced plantations, beautiful rocky cliffs and tunnels with streams or reservoirs of water below…

There were more of the depressing views like the one we woke up to as well - cramped-looking apartment buildings that would look atmospheric in a Wong Kar Wai movie, big-ass factories where massive amounts of smoke billowed into the sky and tonnes and tonnes of landfill spoiling some pristine-looking countryside.

Still the amount of construction and infrastructure development taking place even in the countryside is impressive - even if you think that is a narrow definition of a country’s development.

We reached Beijing around 2pm and the amount of people, touts and general loudness of the whole place was a shock after days of being in a place with more animals than humans and where the largest city has a population of 1.5 million.

Things got worse on the subway, which we took to get to Forbidden City (which was pretty impressive and I’d seen so many Chinese period movies and dramas on TV that I almost feel like I know the place) and then to the duck restaurant.

Perhaps because it was a public holiday (I reckoned it must be, as Forbidden City was teeming with locals and the tube was packed to the brim at 2.30 in the afternoon) or perhaps it was rush hour the second time we took the train… Whatever it was, it was definitely an experience!

I think they should actually classify being on Beijing subway in rush hour as a competitive sport like Body Combat. There is much pushing and shoving, a lot of elbows, people falling on top of each other (despite the lack of space, the jerk can be quite violent to cause this) and a fair bit of shouting from officials who want everyone to move further into the train.

After surviving the crowds and subsisting on bread, jam and cream cheese, we decided we deserved some delicious duck. Unfortunately we trusted an outdated map and went to the branch of duck restaurant Alex took us on our first night in Beijing that is closer to the train station.

After much confusion and numerous walks up and down the street we found out it is no longer there. I was gutted. But we found a good Szechuan restaurant so it wasn’t too bad. Along the way we got more souvenirs and some CDs (4$) and DVDs (1.5$)…

Now I’m writing this from my bed on the fast train to Shanghai. It’s a futuristic-looking white pod of a cabin with nice white sheets, a flat screen TV for each bunk, and temperature controls. But the connection is sketchy so let’s hope this goes up!