Day II in China

I got absolutely fleeced at the Airport on Thursday. As I was walking to the taxi stand, a local saw gullible foreigner and said he can arrange taxi. They had a proper kiosk where we checked hotel on map. The cost was 400 yuan (NZ$70) which I thought was a bit steep, but agreed. Only later I realise this was massively over-priced. As a comparison a one day tour to the Great Wall costs only 260 yuan (NZ$40).

You do notice the Internet censorship. All blogspot.com is blocked which is annoying, however I can still view most of them through my bloglines viewer. Other large blog hosts are fine though. The top 20 hits for Dalai Lama in Google all come up as non existent if you try to go through to them.

However on the other hand I did enjoy reading the local paper which called on countries to commit to free trade. Also the media do criticize the Government in some areas, just never on anything major. And just to prove some things are universal, the major story was the screening of the third Star Wars movie, with quotes from fans.

Freiday was 1st day of the meetings with the All-China Youth Federation and Government. Met the Vice-Chairman of the National People