MonoMonday:Food

It took another 5 or 6 hours to cross the border last night. It was made more interesting as they had to change the bogies on the train. That involved jacking about 6 carriages at a time up 2 metres and switching the bogies. This seemed particularly fascinating to the men on board.

There wasn't much to blip today which was spent travelling through Inner Mongolia to Beijing. The Chinese landscape was probably quite nice had not the visibility been reduced to about a kilometre with smog. There were some quite mountainous areas and many tunnels. There's lots of construction going on, cranes, power lines, huge piles of coal. The settlements we saw were pretty poor looking with litter everywhere.

Beijing is a big, smoggy city with lots of people. The hotel is ornate and a total contrast from last night's accommodation with all the usual frustrations of wannabe hotels which drive us crazy - hidden light switches, a safe no one can figure out. King size bed but no coat hangers. But worst of all the "wifi" is so bad I have wasted an hour trying unsuccessfully to upload my blips.

Anyway the good new is Hobbs has chosen a theme for MonoMonday which I can find an image for. We were surprised to receive free lunch and breakfast vouchers on the Chinese train. Here is John not overly impressed with his hard boiled egg, black tea, bread and jam. But would you believe - the butter is from New Zealand And the jam from Austria. It's rare to see something not "Made in China".