au revoir beijing

we woke early on our last day in beijing...for the time being!

ready by nine we went out for a walk. we enjoyed the little shops where people sang out 'hello lady', 'hello sir ' just as they do from every counter in the department stores. i thought it was for the europeans only but it is for everyone. there were people eating breakfast on the pavements, cyclists on all shapes and sizes of bicycles.

we picked our way through and found a 'coffee shop'. it turned out to part of an hotel and offered tea, coffee, toast, butter and marmalade! (we'd abandonned breakfast in our hotel after the first morning. with hundreds of european tourists-literally-we could hardly serve ourselves and had to sit in the reception bar to eat!) so a familiar albiet expensive breakfast!

back to the hotel to check out and change some travellers cheques. they refused lou's and said they were stained. got sweaty in his money belt? they were happy to take mine and we hope we can sort out lou's later (we have ...in hong kong!) off to the enormous beijing west station where macy dashed about trying to find the right place! finally we found international departures. macy presented us with a gift of decorated apples for family day-25th september and hustled us through.

the train was waiting and was very swish! the best yet. hot water in the taps!
the first part of the journey was under a misty sky and some rain. we were horrified to witness the darkening of the sky around 3.30pm as we approached an industrial town. huge chimneys belching smoke , other large and small ones doing the same too. around the town vegetable gardens and fields of maize growing under this smog.
after ten - fifteen minutes further down the line the sky cleared...a bit. we sat stunned. 'the end of the world ' said lou...'but it could be ' i replied!

during the night i woke up with a tingling in mybottom lip. to my horror, my lip and right side of my face was rapidly swelling, plus an angry red patch under my left eye. we're assuming i was bitten. i slapped on the cortisone cream and lou made me take an anti inflammatory ibuprofen. scared me half silly. scenarios of closing throat etc.! 'elephant women' lou is calling this morning. will the customs let me through? i already don't look like my passport photo which was taken nine years ago! :)