I get into Beijing and head straight for the Mongolian embassy. It only takes about an hour to find. It might have been easier to get all the visas before I left but that would probably have taken me longer and Japan would have kicked me out of the country. I'm glad I'm going East to West and not the other way around, as I gather the embassies are stricter, pickier and grumpier in the UK and in Russia. Visa issues sorted for the day, I spend the next two hours trying to decide what to have for breakfast, by which time it's really rather closer to lunch. This is the beauty of travelling with no fixed schedule, you can give breakfast the due care and consideration it deserves in a country with such great food. Mysterious pastries, as it turns out. I'm sure they have a better name, but for me with my pathetic command of the Chinese language, mysterious pastries they shall have to remain.
Later I walk around the lake near the forbidden city and get lost (again) in the hutongs. This is a more commercially developed area, and it is impossible to walk 3 steps without someone offering me a rickshaw ride. Do I really look so decrepit?
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