I'm on a train

I doubt if Blues have ever let the train take the strain before, but that was the latest mode of transport utilised here.

A 400-mile journey to Shenyang, China's biggest city in the north west, was quicker than catching a plane from Beijing. Apparently.

Well, it certainly wasn't a 'bullet' train as it took four hours to cover the distance.

A first class carriage had been booked for the squad, yet it seemed no different to the regular kind of compartment you would get back home.

Nikola Zigic passed the hours by burying his nose in an English phrasebook and Maik Taylor fell asleep and woke to find he had been bound up in tape.

Suffice to say, as the tour has gone on and the moving and mileage has totted up, the players and travelling party in general have become a little fractious.

As they shuffled down the carriage towards the exit to the platform at the journey's end, lumping their suitcases and bags along, someone began whistling 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' and a fair few joined in the ironic ditty.

Alex McLeish was accosted by a television crew as soon as he got off the train.

Patient and courteous, Big Eck agreed to an interview and then must have wondered what on earth it that was about: he was asked three questions - what did you think of the train, what did you have for breakfast, what do you think of the weather - then they were off!

Blues were then transferred to the Sheraton in Shenyang, an hotel which seems to be plonked in the middle of a big shopping mall.

Shenyang is a city trying to reinvent itself. Once an enconomic giant, its heavy industries fell into decline during the 1980s and unemployment was rife.

There are new buildings and hotels being built and an accent being put on software, the services sector and auto and aerospace concerns.

The Shenyang Olympic Stadium is an impressive venue. Built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it hosted the football tournament.

Blues found it and the pitch to their liking, although there was a definite feel that someone was watching over your shoulder all the time.

We were told that the handful of men in purple polo shirts who were casually suantering around us and the stadium at the first training session here were Chinese secret police.

And back at the hotel two unsmiling figures lounged on a sofa 10 yards away, pretending not to look at myself, Andy Walker and the Blues commercial, marketing and media team, as we had a nightcap at the Mezza bar.

They only left when we left, and there was no-one else around in the lobby at all. Spooky.