Time to move

After ages in Beijing, I'm off to Mongolia on Tuesday morning. I'm going to have to go and stay at a hostel that is right next to the train station because the train leaves at 7.40am. Ouch. Anyways, it's a long train (it's the first leg of the trans-Siberian express) and goes directly to Ulan Bator, with a long stop at the border I'm sure, arriving there on Wednesday at 1pm or so. The scenery should be great.

The plan is to stay out that way for 2 weeks, maybe 3. Then it's back to Beijing to collect my things and whatnot before catching a plane (yes, a plane) to Shanghai. I want to fly there since it is only a little more expensive than going by train (like R400 as opposed to R200, and 1.5 hours compared to 12ish) and apparently the train going from Shanghai airport into the city is some bizarre magnetic suspended high-speed thing. I'll spend some time there and the backpacking gets going properly. I've a vague route in mind, and I'll keep you posted as I go.

I had a bicycle here a few weeks back - my housemate Richard's girlfriend had a bike here before she went home, and so she kindly bequeathed it to us. Sadly the lock was rusted and didn't work, nor did we have the key, so we used to just prop it up to look locked, and this worked well, judging by the fact that the bike was not stolen. Might also be due to the bike being a complete piece of shit. One night, a dark, blustery, stormy night, we arose to find all the bikes downstairs (there are lots of them, almost Amsterdam-like) blown over by the wind, and lo and behold! Our bike was down, but the impact with the ground had pushed the propped up lock through and properly locked it... as I said, we have no key.

Anyways, must be on my bike.