THIS CHALLENGE IS PANTS! Well Michie I have only been in Beijing 15 hours and I have already attempted 4 of your challenges. Andy has self-appointed himself as official adjudicator so you can be assured that there will be absolutely no cheating. Right, first up challenge number 1 does not have a piccie as it was the chatting with the locals one. As requested I had to pretend to listen to some locals talking then join in. On the way to Tianmen Sq we were waiting for some traffic lights to change (which can take anything from 2 minutes to 2 hours). There were two girls deep in conversation so I turned round and pretended to listen, nodded my head in all the right places then broke into a stirling rendition of "..Shimmy sham lee wang two tan me fan..." or words to that affect. The two girls looked at each other, looked at me and burst out laughing. Nuala witnessed the whole thing and is happy that my first challenge was achieved.

Next up T square itself was a bit more tricky. For a start you're not even allowed to stand for more than a few seconds on the square as the guards move you on, you are supposed to keep walking at all times. Secondly there are practically hunderds of guards everywhere and not one army tank in site, so the opportunity to throw myself on the ground in front of one was limited. Sooooo in a bid to at least attempt something you will see by the above piccie that Andy volunteered to be the tank, whilst i did my best impression of a protesting student. I know Miche, you are unlikely to accept this as a completed task but I urge you to take into consideration the fact that Andy and I were absolutely pooing ourselves doing it !! We were expected to get hauled off the square as soon as I hit the ground. Surely I get 10 out of 10 for trying??

Next up was the pants challenge which again I offer pictorial proof of attempting. The Pant man in question was VERY reluctant to have his piccie taken as he quite rightly suspected that I was a raving British pervert, however a lot of sign language and a hell of a lot of smiling finally convinced him to say 'cheese'.

Last up today was lunch and this was my attempt at the eating challenge. As stipulated Andy was allowed to pick THREE things for me to eat from the FIRST stall we found in Beijing. Well as we went straight from the overnight train to T square, the first stall was right in the middle of town and much to my delight was serving breakfast omletes, rolls and some sandwiches that looked a bit like spam and fat. As it was ridiculous o'clock we decided to do a few laps of the square and I agreed to complete the challenge at lunchtime. Unfortunately for me when we went back a few hours later for my spam and fat sandwich the lovely breakfast stand had packed up and gone home for the day, so instead I had to make do with some VERY dodgy looking roadside offerings on the way home. Thankfully there wasn't too much selection so Andy couldn't be too cruel. I ended up with Cold fatty noodles, an egg of some creature I'd rather not think about and the most disgusting piece of chewy meat that was quite probably an ear or piece of tongue from a dog (it was that bad even Andy turned his nose up at it!). Suffice to say I sampled all three and both Andy & Nuala witnessed the disgusting event.

So not bad for my first day. Still not sure how I'm going to get a soldier to give me a piggyback as they wouldn't even let me take a piccie in the square today. Have no fear though I'm still working on it.

Time for beddy byes as I'm off to the big wall thingie in the morn.
Tatty bye
Vic xx