First post from China

I left Mongolia by train today and arrived in Beijing this afternoon. What a difference!

Mongolia is the most sparsely-populated country on earth. There are less than three million people, about one million of whom live in Ulaanbaatar. China has about 1.5 billion people, 15 million of whom live in Beijing. China has over 100 cities that are bigger than UB!

My hostel is a five-minute walk from Tiananmen Square -- I can actually see it from here -- so I walked up there briefly. But now I'm going to eat and go to bed. I'm leaving tomorrow for a hike on the Great Wall, and I think it would be wise to get some rest first...