Shanghai

So after a bit of a fuck up with trains, we had only 2 days in Shanghai, so it pretty much meant we were on the go the whole time.



Most of the time we spent trekking along the Bund, the main river in Shanghai.



A crazy place, which looked amazing at night.



On the river I was trying to teach a Finish guy some photography basics, tricky with my limited knowledge! While playing about during our crash course I took this shot of Nels, decided I liked it, so here it is.

Beijing

So we got into Beijing on the 8th. Was cool to see the trains being lifted up and having the wheels changed, due to different track widths in Mongolia and China. This border crossing was a bit more chilled, with no crazy market sellers or anything, and a free breakfast and lunch, score.



This was the street that we stayed on Beijing. A really cute little street, which was a nice mix of busyness and quietness. Beijing wasn't really as mental as I expected, with lots of it being quite traditional.



On the second day we headed to the Olympic Village, to check out the Birds Nest Stadium and the Water Cube. The whole area was very impressive, and it was clear a ridiculous amount had been spent on the development. This photo shows the criss-cross metal work that goes around the whole outside of the stadium. It was awesome inside as well.



Also all of the tourist sellers sell really weird stuff, like big massive kites. We tried to work out why they'd assumed thats what tourists wanted to buy... We came to no definitive conclusion, instead I just took pictures of them.



You guys are probably bored of seeing sunset photos, but I think this is a good one... Just outside of the Forbidden City, which was slightly boring, but the sunset wasn't!



So we spent 6 hours in total on a bus there and back, to the Great Wall, so could go to a section where there were hardly any tourists. I have to say we weren't disappointed, not quite the swamped tourist trap we had imagined before reaching Beijing. Also some of the sections weren't restored, and we stupidly steep, so it was nice to see the wall in its old state, rather than a renovated new version. The pictures don't really do the wall justice, literally as far as you can... Amazing place.



After trekking round the Forbidden City, which like I said was slightly boring, just lots of courtyards, we came across this park which extended up to the hill so you could see the whole of city. We could hear a saxophone being played the whole time we were in the park, so decided to track it down. It turned out to be a chinese guy just jamming out on his own, really nice to sit and listen to, while of course sneakily taking his picture....

Mongolia

We reached Mongolia on the 1st after a pretty manic train journey, with Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian sellers trying to smuggle their goods into every available space on the train. This included our cabin, so we were slightly worried when the customs officers came round, in case not everything had been taken out and moved along.
Ulan Bator was a very interesting place, definitely a cultural bridge between Russian and China, with real influences of both.



We organised a 3 day tour to go and stay with a nomadic family in a nearby national park, called Terelj National Park, meaning we had to be up and out at 9am. Myself and John, a new friend we had made in Ulan Ude, were in surprisingly good spirits after waking up at 3.45am to watch Spurs demolish Inter Milan. (A lovely result considering Tottenham's critics especially after the group stages draw had been made...)
Anyway back to the National Park! The scenery was amazing, rocks about 30/40m tall surrounding our camp. We spent the first day just wandering about, taking in the views and chatting to the family we were with.



The second day we went horse riding on some of the horses the family own. These were quite a bit smaller than horses in the uk, so we all looked pretty funny, withus all being reasonable tall lads! This was my horse, which I named Crouchy as he was rather unstable on his feet, and actually feel over onto his knees at one point, which I expertly managed to ride out.



So our group headed out for around 2 hours of horse riding. This was interesting as all of our horses seemed to really pick up speed at random points, which was slightly daunting the first time as none of us knew it was going to happen! Me, Mike and John set the pace the whole day!



At one point our guide, one of the sons in the family, decided to gallop off and leave us to our own devices, so he could come to the aid of a goat herder having a spot of trouble with some rebels in his herd. Made for a good picture with sunset in the background.

Olkhon Island + Ulan Ude

We decided to go and visit Olkhon Island, which is an island in the middle of Lake Baikal. If you imagine the Ibiza of Siberia you’re pretty much there....
We had a 6 hour journey to get there from Irkutsk, and this was a shot from the ferry we took to get to the island. It was a beautiful sunny day, which was a contrast to the overcast days we’d had recently.



One the second day we took a 4x4 tour round the middle, checking out the west, north and east coastlines. A guy in our group kindly let me use his 10-22mm lens, with this and a couple of other pictures being the result. If only I had a spare £500 quid knocking about to buy one....



This is another picture of the lake from the east coast, with this showing the full coast line. A very surreal place like nowhere else I’ve ever visited!


Ulan Ude was our next city, and was quite a quiet place. After the stress of trying to find our hostel for about 3 hours in sub zero temperatures we were just happy to have a bed for the night! The next day was spent visiting a monastery out of town, which was an impressive spectacle, more like a small town in the middle of nowhere.



This photo shows lots of ribbons tied to trees behind the monastery. Different coloured ribbons have different significance as offerings. Green represent thanks for grass, red is everlasting fire, and white is thanks for milk.



We got on our train heading towards Mongolia the day after, and this was the first journey where we started to see real changes in the scenery. This photo was taken just as we circled round the bottom of Lake Baikal.