By ADRIAN ELY, STEPS Centre member

I was keen to try and cut my carbon footprint in coming to Beijing for the Ecosummit and had been lucky enough to find the time and the resources necessary to travel to the conference by land, which allowed me the opportunity to enjoy a fascinating journey.

I left for Beijing from Brighton, UK on 10 May, initially heading to Brussels on the Eurostar for a workshop of the Safe Foods project and continuing on the train all the way to China.

Eurasia is a very big place, and seems even bigger when viewed from a cramped four-berth cabin on the trans-Mongolian express.

My journey took me on through the deciduous forests of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia (see photo to the right),

around the Southern tip of Lake Baikal (photo below, right).

Then on through the grasslands of the Russian and Asian steppes (below, left),

and the desert scrublands of Mongolia (to the right).

At last we passed the Great Wall of China (if you look hard enough at the photo on the left you might see the Great Wall on the hill on the right!)

And after a total journey of 11 days (including stop-overs), the train finally delivered me to Beijing Central Station (see photo at the top of the blog) yesterday, on 21 May.

I am in China to attend the Ecosummit 2007 in Beijing representing STEPS and over the next five days will report back periodically here on The Crossing. For the next two months, I will also be meeting with Chinese researchers and trying to learn Mandarin.