I confess, it has been 7 months since my last post.

Seven months has passed without a single word from the team here at Claire vs. China and for that we apologise. Of course it being only me here has made things a little more difficult and the Internet blocking and VPN nightmare for the last few months has not helped an already over stretched and stressed team here in Kunming HQ.

Anyway, enough apologising....on with the story.

I left off (in October) travelling somewhere between Qingdao and Beijing. Its only a 4 hour train journey by bullet train so I figured all would be all hunkey dorey and relaxing good fun, however I did manage to overlook the fact that i would be travelling on October the First, National Day and day one of Golden week. One of the busiest day to travel in the Chinese calender. I stupidly figured that most people would have already travelled and I thought I would be OK. I was very wrong! Hundreds of people crammed into a train station waiting area all fighting for the non existent spare seats and one one toilet (not loads of imagination required to guess what that was like), most people were perched on bags slurping pot noodles and just getting in other peoples, also eating pot noodles, way. I had a seat on the train so I wasn't too concerned about the train part but getting there was something else. Take my advice, NEVER travel on the first of October!

4 slightly cramped and uncomfortable hours later I arrived back into Beijing and headed straight to SanLiTun Hostel. The hostel itself has barely changed in the three years I have been going there, and it has a homecoming feel every time I arrive. It helps though when the staff come running to meet you in a flying hug, thank you Candy!

Beijing was my last stop on my mini adventure before heading back to Kunming and back to work, so I was determined to do as little as humanly possible and just chill for a few days. I checked into a 4 person dorm room and was immediately adopted by a group of friends travelling about who decided I needed to be added to a group. To make the world seem even smaller I met a guy in the bar one morning who I had talking into moving to China three years before. We were both staying in the same hostel, me on  a break from Shenyang and he on a little fact finding tour holiday, we got chatting one evening and apparently I can be persuasive when I want to be. Slightly scary and coincidental but really nice to see a familiar face.

My few days in Beijing were spent sat on the decking with a beer or sitting in various bars across the area with a beer. Chilled out was what I needed and chilled out

was what I got. The guys were new to the area so I put on my tour guide hat and took them to all the old haunts, we also did more shopping than I have ever done with anyone else. Huge backpacks were filled after every trip to a market, it was incredible to watch.

But sadly my trip was coming to a close much faster than I would have liked and I had to get on a plane and return to the teaching lifestyle. Beijing in possibly my favourite city in China so I know I will be back.