Nia Hao from Beijing (yes, we are still here :)

First I need to say a major congrats to the British Track Team at the Worlds - woohoo! You guys totally rock! Especially Mr Hoy! Gold in the Keirin AND the Kilo!!!! And the lady sprinters are also very speedy in Spain, Victoria Pendleton is burning up the track! Even the team pursuit guys kicked butt...it makes me warm and fuzzy all over :):):)

We are doing our own little bit of raging around Beijing on our bicycles, not quite as fast but we are not hanging around, either :) This would be a great town for a fixed gear bike as it's so flat. We have had a bit of weather here - we were off the bikes for 2 days because of rain (we don't mind riding in the rain, but the combo of wet and cold - and it is VERY cold - is not healthy and we need to stay healthy for Tibet) and when it's not raining, and the sun is out, it very windy. We enjoyed the tailwind whipping us on our way south yesterday but when it came time to ride home last night we had a big headwind, so we put our past cycling experience to good use and drafted off some of the electric bikes and motorpaced our way north in a two man paceline (not unlike that photo of Chris Hoy riding the Keirin on cyclingnews, but we were bundled up in our bright rain jackets and 2 layers of warm jerseys :) Ah, this is great :)

We have been eating some fabulous food! We found this litle place near the hotel that serves some delicious steamed dumplings, we've been there twice :) The other restaurants that we have found (on our own, without the guidebook!) have also had some really nice food. It's very hard to find pure veggie food - our "vegetable fried rice" last night had bits of ham in it and the chilli tofu dish from a few nights ago was really a chilli, *pork* and tofu dish. A is not complaining too much, but it does put her off the food occasionally. She has just popped out to this little grocery we discovered the other night (we rode home late at night and we were starving so we stopped at the only mini-market we could find) which is totally chocka block with foreign food and supplies!!!! They even have French Toast Poptarts!!!! (my favorite flavor :) A is picking up some bread, peanut butter and jelly and some fruit....though she may opt for cheese in the sandwiches - they have brie and all sorts of yummy cheeses, too (in India, cheese comes in a can :). In the small shop across the road we buy these blocks of rice puff and syrup - it's very much like a rice krispie treat :) and we also get packets of coffee mix to have coffee in the room, it's a lot cheaper than tea!

On to public loos :) There are TONS of them around - we are definitely not seeing any of what we saw all over India (people going wherever they liked). In the Forbidden City they have 4 star toilets (there is a sign to tell you so :). The loos vary from quite decent - with a choice of western and squat toilets - to pretty rudimentary - all squat toilets with no doors, just some short partitions between them to separate them. All toilets have a flush, there is no bucket flush like we had more often than not in India. It's definitely a bring your own paper affair, only one of the loos (in a mall) had a big toilet roll dispenser out near the sinks and you were supposed to take some and then take it in with you. They sell pocket tissue packs outside the loos, though we haven't actually seen very many of these shops manned by anyone. Then there is the issue of flushing the paper - they don't, as it causes the toilet to back up or it is too much for the sewage system to handle or something....they have a small trash bin in with the loo for the collection of used paper.

I had quite a humorous experience yesterday in the public loo at the Drum Tower. The loo there is one of the all squat, short partition variety (and this is a major tourist sight!). Hey, I'm always up for when in Rome type behavior and I need togo, so I'm going to use the loo even though it reminds me of the toilets in kindergarten when they don't trust you with having a door on your cubicle :). We are tearing around Beijing on our bikes so I am wearing my lycra bike shorts - they are bibs, so I have straps that go over my shoulders and I have to take my arms out of my shirt sleeves to get my pants down (and it's chilly!!! But the bibs keep me toasty warm under my jeans :). So I am stripping off to my sports bra (and the eyes tatoo is staring out from my belly :) and two young girls come into the loo, the smallest one just stares at me...and then giggles (this happens to me a lot :) and then goes over to use the toilet next to mine. As I am putting myself back together she is now standing in front of me (I'm only half dressed at this point) and asks me my name! This happens to us frequently, but rarely in the loo :) A was outside watching the kit, so when I came out she went in. Just as A went in the cleaning lady arrived on her bicycle and went in....she stood in front of A while she was relieving herself and just stared. Are westerners interesting while they are doing this sort of thing??? Are we not doing it right??? Who knows :)

Catch you all later....A has just arived back with the makings for our lunch and she got both peanut butter *and* cheese :) Yum!!!