Mongolian Desert not cold

So am chillin on the platform in Sainhand (a city in Mongolia) and was thinking to myself "wow its a bit warmer than it was yesterday" and then I remembered thats cos we were in the Gobi desert whereas yesterday we'd been in Siberia... really quite confusing when you'd just been getting used to the old Siberian September sub-zero pleasantries.

So the week-long Trans-Siberian/Trans-Mongolian 8000km train is over and we are rocking out in Beijing French Embassy style. The residence here isn't as pretty from the outside as it is in Moscow but the room is far larger and sexy so not too bad. Got to meet up with Chace last night (after just getting in off the big momma 7 day train a couple hours before) and went out for dinner and drinks so was very nice welcome to the city/country/continent (my first time in Asia). Super helpful to know someone who can speak Chinese (i.e. Chace) and has been living here for the past few months so knows the lay of the land a bit.

Stuff is just so cheap-- a taxi across town that would cost £30 in London costs £1.50 here. We had dinner and I had thought each thing would be a small sort of tapas-esque situation (given that each thing was between £1 and 2) and alas we literally had enough food to feed a family of 4, the waiters were laughing at the end when we had half of it put in containers to take away (which we then gave to a mother and child who were begging for food on the way back to the embassy). Anyway so slowly getting used to the whole price level being 1/10th that of London.

French keyboards are a bit poo so going to sign off now-- photos still forthcoming-- I've filled up 1GB already so not quite sure how I'm going to get them off the card yet but stay tuned!