China

Best place to start is always at the beginning; Terminal 5 is not so much Space Odyssey 2001's 60s vision of the future, more Total Recall's 80's vision. Very slick and my luggage made it, yay!

Didn't sleep a wink on the flight, but the food was alright...good ole BA. I watched I'm Not There and The Duchess, both passed the 20 minute boredom threshold. As we prepare to land, I look out at the window to the rugged blue mountains poking up from a blanket of cloud, 'This isn't a city, it's virtually uninhabitable', I thought to myself. Then the plane tilted, hoorah signs of life, big factories bellowing out smoke from huge chimneys. Beijing airport is ridiculously clean, you can eat dumplings off the floor and it's run like a military exercise. Got a cab to the Far East International hostel with a driver who felt the need to clear his throat every two seconds. The room was basic, but hostel had loads of facilities, English-speaking friendly staff and it was clean.

Walk around Beijing and the first thing I noticed is that all the Chinese men smoke and hook up greenies that they then spit on the street. Poor Chinese women, no wonder they prefer Western men. A good thing to take to Dragon's Den would be a street spittoon for China, after all they've been selling us their tat for years!

Tianamen Square is just a massive expanse of space, it's huge and the police run bags through metal detectors every time you use a subway, even if its just to cross the street. Saw loads of soldiers parading and yelling through the city, there is a high police presence. Forbidden City is nothing short of magnificent. The rest of Beijing is just huge, the width of their roads is the length of my road. There is a bit of a funny feel to it and very underwhelming.

Also visited the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall. The wall is a huge engineering feat, but not sure how useful a wall on top of a mountain would be at keep out the Mongol's. The Ming Tombs were really dull, as it's just a pagoda, the tomb hasn't even been excavated! The tour guide was called Magic and he was really cool, I grilled him about the Chinese regime, seems that communism in China is all about making money and controlling everything...sounds more like capitalism to me?! Part of the tour was dealing with been taken to all sorts of shops disguised as factories on making traditional Chinese crafts.

Watched Team America back in the hostel, the subtitles were hysterical; 'bastard/asshole/douchbag', etc. were translated to 'bad egg' and 'suck my cock' was translated to 'dive a muff'.

During the Chinese revolution, Chairman Mao ordered that imperialistic/colonial Chinese history should be destroyed. As a lover of antiques, history and architecture this is a real shame and I think Beijing has lost something as a result of it. It supports tourism through replicas and half-arsed historical sights. I guess its not deemed as important as the Olympics (the stadiums are incredible by the way).

Xian is a city that feels more European, more bustling and loads of shopping centres and KFC's. Staying at the Nan Fang hotel, not far from the Goose Pagoda. Got watch some Chinese TV, still traumatised by an infomerical advertising a sanitary towel that sucks it all out, alivates pains and smells of flowers...there was maths equation, a used pad and a doctor raving about it!

I began my search to find internet, this was a tough job as no-one seemed to know what the words 'computer' or 'internet' were. The Chinese are very friendly and always want to help, however they can never say no. They sent me on this goose-chase that kind of had me circulating a computer emporium for gamers. Spoke to so many people and trekked around the city, saw all the sights including a strip devoted entirely to coffee houses and another for art galleries displaying traditional Chinese art. Spoke to this little girl in English, who beamed with pride when I told her that her English was very good. Xian isn't geared up for tourists at all, all the signs are in Chinese apart from fancy boutiques call New York or Dreams. I find it especially annoying when no-one in the hotel can speak English.

Saw the Terracotta Warriors, something that should have taken a couple of hours took a whole day, taking us round replaces of Emperor Qin's tomb, lunch, a couple of shops and Banpo (preserved 6000 year old village). The warriors are in massive pits and the Chinese have built a massive resort around it.

China is very Westernised in every way, but is so insular. The Chinese TV doesn't show anything other then Chinese programming and you don't have access to anything isn't Chinese. Yet everything basically emulates what the rest of the world is doing. Naturally China isn't very cosmopolitan and it's people are extremely educated, but there is something totalitarian about this country that is a bit scary, from the chants that bellow through Beijing streets and the billboards depicting Chinese ideals. Also everything in China is huge, they don't do anything by halves, maybe it's small man syndrome. On the whole, China reminds me a lot of another superpower, just across the Pacific.