Off to China

So i am going away slightly earlier this year (which does mean its only a couple of weeks after getting back from France) but i wanted to try China and most of the trips i looked at starting tailing off in November/December as the weather gets colder. A bit by luck, but after booking most of the reviews have said that October is one of the best times to come over, so fingers crossed.

I went back to Trailfinders again, and after having to correct a slight over-estimation of available budget, i have ended with a trip which combines Beijing, Xian, Yangtze cruise, Shanghai and a couple of days in Abu Dhabi breaking up the return journey.  Abu Dhabi combined a reasonable value flight (Ethiad) and a location i had not been to before.

Flights over were fairly uneventful, extended stop over in Abu Dhabi due to Beijing flight being delayed by 90 minutes, but arrived in Beijing around 10am to find:

- we landed at a massive, almost empty, terminal, which was built for Olympics;
- no queues at immigration, through in 5 mins;
- a journey by car to hotel where traffic was as bad as most large capital cities (but not as chaotic as other Asian cities i have been to);
- the expected smog.

So after checking in, today has been about acclimatisation (not a sensible word to use without benefit of spell check) with main sightseeing starting tomorrow at 8am.