We’d decided, this being our first day, and it being late in the afternoon, to take it easy and find a suitable place to eat, with the intention of having an early night.

The restaurant we chose, with the help of the concierge, appeared to be a five minute walk from the hotel, according to the map we’d been given by the receptionist. In reality this turned out to be about 45 minutes; this included time getting slightly lost due to vague hand directions that seem endemic in Beijing.

When we first arrived we were sure our concierge had sent us to some tourist-trap that his friend owned. He had assures us the restaurant offered “vegetables, no meat”, and he was right: everything on the menu was veggie or vegan. (We later found out the establishment was situated right outside The Forbidden City, which explains its tourist look, though on further reflection nearly all the half-decent looking places had an outer facade of tackiness. I suppose this is just the style in Beijing.)

The first ten minutes were amongst the most uncomfortable we’d ever spent in our dining careers. We were the only customers there, and were immediately encircled by 6 or 7 staff, ready to be there for our merest whim. The unwritten rule of “unseen attendance” simply does not exist here.

The food was very nice, well presented, original and reasonably priced. We left with enough food in our stomachs for the journey home; a journey home which took longer than the journey there, because of an untraversable stretch of water that meant our walking a fair distance in the opposite direction to that which we wanted; a journey home which took in Tiananmen Square, and pompous building after pompous building stretched along a road that would have looked like Les Champs Elysee if Les Champs Elysee had eaten all its spinach as a child.

Getting out of the airport and into “China” is as formtastic as one imagines. First a form needs to be filled in with details of any illnesses one may have. This form is taken (without a glance at what I may be a carrier of), and a short walk takes us to another station where we fill in similar personal details again, minus our state of health.

Afraid that I may be thrown in prison after crossing a few boxes instead of ticking, I redo the form. Still afraid after writing my flight came from Stockholm (when, in fact, the flight number I wrote was from Copenhagen), I write a a third time. Satisfied I’ll be a free man, we stroll to the passport check, and proceed unscathed to the front door of the airport.

Of course, we first have to fill out a form describing what we are intending to take into the country, I tick (yes, tick) the no-boxes of all the suggestion of dubious/illegal cargo I may have with me and hand the form to an official, who duly takes it without seeing I may have a giraffe in my pocket. Success!

We’re on our way to the hotel with a horn-happy taxi-driver, who insists we need not put on our safety belts. How strange it feels.

The flight to Copenhagen went as well as could be expected, given the snowy conditions in Denmark. We arrived with a few hours to spare, and passed the time by playing games.

When the time came we made our way to the departure lounge, which was more of an expedition than a stroll. We sat and waited for a while, to then be shuffled back out into the check-in area we had previously passed on our way to the lounge. The lounge was then screened off, we lined up dutifully to check-in, then we walked through another screened off area which led back into the area we had just been ushered from. A truly fantastic bit of organising.

Our plane was delayed further due to what I thought to be technical problems with the “jet bridge”, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Whatever it was that was the cause of the problem was soon fixed, and we were allowed to board the plane. I then proceeded to the toilet to pop some morphine up my bum, to help the 9 hour flight pass by more pleasurably.

This is the first time we have flown SAS on a long haul; we’ve been suitably impressed by what’s on offer, especially the touch screen monitors placed by every seat. A variety of films, radio stations and games can be selected, and I was very chuffed to see (and play) Atari’s Centipede among the choices.

Neither the drugs, alcohol, books, films or games took my mind completely off the fact we were flying at 900km/h at a height of 10,000 metres above the comparative safety of the surface of the earth, but I became tired enough to doze through half of the journey (which was actually very smooth, with little turbulence). We arrived in Beijing at 7.30 am (14.30 local time) alive and well. Hoorah!

We arrived at the airport several hours earlier then we had originally planned. The heavy snowstorms in the south of Sweden and Denmark (our first stop) had caused problems, so we decided to leave nothing to luck and assure ourselves the connection to Beijing in Copenhagen.

Whilst waiting in one of the terminal’s restaurants I pulled out the DS and proceeded to play Animal Crossing to pass the time. An American family came and occupied the table next to ours, and it was during a quick glance that I noticed the son was also engrossed in playing his blue DS. A further glance revealed that he, too was in the midst of an Animal Crossing session.

Seizing the opportunity, I asked if he’d like to do a bit of DS-DS, to explore each other’s worlds. Time passed quickly as we exchanged fruit and tips, and he only stopped when his batteries were just about to give up.

I’m really glad I made the effort to talk to the guy. This is, after all, what the DS was made for.