Finished in Beijing, but could stay another week.

Eat your heart out Chris Weatherhead. Peking duck to ourselves, including duck brains! Rachel shared the duck without Huggy telling her it was chicken!
The marble boat in the Summer palace.
One of the unusual bridges around the Summer Palace.
On the great wall.
Believe it or not, I made it over this bridge!


Thought we would put some more pictures on before we left Beijing for Xain tomorrow night. Walked the great wall today - 4 hours of up and down and very steep. Walked with 3 brits, one on holiday , a british muslim optician and 2 at University in Beijing on an exchange from a london University. Rachel did really well and even managed the suspension bridge! Spent some parts of the wall climbing up on all fours as it was so steep, will definetly be aching tomorrow. We visited Jinglang shei and Simatai. We also experienced our first communal squat loos today! Wow, they stank! The day was very misty so we didn't need any suntan lotion. Nice little project for Kenny Leather to rebuild if he is bored!
Yesterday we visited the Summer Palace which was very nice and we had a 3 hour walk around the lake. Also went to the zoo which was interesting. A lot of the zoo has not be done up yet so was not nice to see as the animals were in very small, concrete areas. The areas that had been done up so far were modern with land, but still needed shrubs or grass in places for the animals. The bird of Prey section was very good and had a lot of room. We are both famous now after 2 lots of people stopped us to have our photo taken with them as they had not seen Westerners before! A little embarassing! A guy with a 2 year old blond haired Jacob look a like had swarms of Chinese ladies around him, patting him on the head!

Another day in Beijing.

Had a chill out day today and walked around the Beishal park-absolutely amazing! So clean and tidy, pedalos, people doing Tai Chi and never seen so many bright orange goldfish in one place! This evening we went to an acrobatics show-jaw dropping feats of strength. The ballerina stood on one tiptoe as she balanced on the mans shoulder and he walked round the stage. Unbelievable! Afterwards we went to the home of Peking duck-it was like a 5 star restaurant complete with red carpet and 6 floors to dine in. They have been serving duck for 130 years apparently. So, it's took us 8000 miles for Craig to manage to eat a half duck without Chris Weatherhead's hairy fingers pinching any section of it! Rachel even managed to force the duck down too! But unbelievably she enjoyed it! Only cost us 5 pounds each! As we thought we were doing very well, Rachel asked what was left on the plate and the waitress told Craig to try it-Duck brains to be scooped out of the skull! MMMMMMM!
Forgot to tell you all about the puzzle and IQ museum we went to in Ulaan Bataar. Believe it or not, the museum was all based on one man and he was called Mr Tumul Uti who showed us his magic tricks while we were there. It was a museum holding millions of unusual toys and wooden puzzles made by this man. There were chess boards the size of enormous tables. Had to laugh when we met Mr Tumul Uti as he reminded Craig of his old friend Mick from BKE (Romney and Clive if you're looking, I thought there was something foreign about Mick).
Decided not to go to Japan now as we love China so far and are going to head south to Xian, 3 gorges and Shanghai, then Hong Kong and anywhere else on the way that looks interesting before we arrive in Hainan. Love to all