Life's Good

Day 30: Beijing (CN). We were very happy with the way things were going. We had settled in to the travelling mentality fairly well, the money seemed to be lasting OK and most importantly, we were enjoying ourselves.

Beijing was always going to be a decision point. Before we set off, back in mid January, Karen and I had agreed to use our visit to the Chinese capital as a time for reflection: Was the trip delivering what we both wanted it to? Would we be able to face another train journey? Would we be missing home too much? In between our sightseeing and the 'I'm a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here' food challenges, we had been using the time to ponder these questions. “It feels like a 'no-brainer to me”, Karen said excitedly as we reviewed the flight options on Expedia. “Everything back at home is OK, we're not spending as much as we budgeted and you and me are still talking”, she added with a smile. And with a couple of clicks it was done: We had changed our return flights and extended our adventure into May.

And that wasn't the only change we made that day: I had a makeover: Firstly, the day had come at last for me to have a shave as my beard had been driving me mad for sometime now. Not a trivial task though – it took Karen and me 40 minutes, three razors, a pair of scissors and the 6 inch blade from our Swiss Army knife to remove it. The result? A face as smooth as a babies bottom and one blocked sink (Ooops!). Secondly, I found a little Chinese barber who gave me a haircut, wash and blow dry, for the princely sum of just 5 Yuan (about 50p). And thirdly, I went shopping for some more underpants. After a clever bit of bartering down at the local market, I ended up in a unique position having more pants than I started the journey with. Life's Good!!