Mine's A Number 32

Beijing

Eating Chinese food in China is interesting. Last night I went to a little place round the corner from the hostel. Thinking the dishes would be small I ordered a couple with some rice, forgetting that here the portions are often huge. The chicken with peanuts I had was a vast pyramid of food and tasted great too. A lot of it is considerably spicier here than the Chinese food you get at home, they just love whacking loads of chillies in stuff, but then I suppose you'd expect the lame British palate not to be up to that sort of thing. I hate leaving stuff on the plate but I can tell you getting through dinner last night was a monumental struggle and I barely got through any of the rice although that's not unusual for China. Most people just have a tiny bit with their meals for fear of diluting the great food. After washing all this down with a beer I slowly got up and was amazed to find it all came to just 25 yuan which is less than two quid. So next time you pop down Honest Harry Chan's you'll know you're getting properly ripped off.

I've not had any Peking Duck yet but I hope to remedy that tonight. It's been throwing it down all day which has at least cleared away some of the smog. Last night was the fullest moon of the year although I only know that because I read it in the paper. All the citizens of Beijing got to see was a very blurry faintly circular glow coming from the general direction of where the moon usually is. They're really going to need to sort it out by 2008.