Flowery Bay Beijing

... is to bring a pad of paper and a pen with me. I point at my
digital travel watch and write a time that I think it is. The driver
will usually take the pen and adjust to the correct time.Donghua Men Night Market



One of the appeals of Beijing is the exotic food, even if it is to
only watch the locals eat it. Anything and everything is available at
the Donghua Men Night Market from snake to seahorse to anything ...

We arrived in Beijing in the mid-afternoon so we dropped off our things at the hotel and headed to the Temple of Heaven. We saw that in a light rain. My mom bought an umbrella for $1.50 and Henry bought his first little souvenir for 80 cents. Gotta love China.

After dinner, it was raining and they were practicing the parade for the 60th anniversary for communism (roads were blocked) and as a result we couldn't hail a taxi to ...

... importantly for the modern world, its current Great Wall is its writing. Complex, cumbersome amd in our view enormously impractical, the alphabet takes 7 years to learn the basics of and isolates other cultures from China very thoroughly. The burden of the alphabet learning process, combined with their reluctance to ask questions, means that literacy is difficult to spread and that Chinese students have to work very hard to learn the same amount that their Western ...

... blocks up, only to get there and find out that they were closed fro renovations. Which was a bit disappointing as according to our guide book, drum displays were held on the steps to the tower. Instead we went to a rooftop cafe for a juice. Once we'd rested we walked to a lake that we had seen from the park. It was also surprising huge. It seems as though the Chinese like hiding things within the city. On first impressions you wouldn't think that ...

... was a great game. The Hungarians and the MonteNegro-ians did not leave ((they played the previous game and by the way they serve $.80 US (RBM 5.00)beers here))and they were routing for Syrbia and of course USA was well represented so it was a lively crowd. Our boys looked amazing!!!! - athletically but also Very handsome and oh so built. That concludes our first Olympic Day......

... to save a bit of money. So to start with we are staying in dorm rooms, rather than private rooms, which is a good way to save. We are staying at Leos Hostel, near Tiannamen Square which is very close to where we stayed last time we were hereB So in one way it is like coming back to somewhere we are already familiar with which makes a change from constantly visiting new placesB Beijing is really boiling at the moment ...

... without a single tourist in sight. This is through a combination of patience, good fortune and the need to rest after scrabbling up one of the aforementioned steep sections. Given the aforementioned comments about the various sections of the wall and the (de-)merits, I am glad we have visited Mutianyu today. Sure, much of it has been reconstructed, but that's a good thing in a way. It is possible to get a sense of what life may ...

... guess there's not much to say about hiking as it's just walk, walk and walk. The view from up there is amazing and looking back to what we had already done gave us a great sense of achievement. Unfortunately we were not brave enough to take the whole tour and took a shortcut back after the 9th tower when the climb became really dangerous according to our assesment. In the end no one died or got injured, so maybe we were just a bit too worried. Day 53 Today I found my ...

... as there were no proper stairs for most of it and it was very steep. So about 5 hours after we had first set out we had made it to where we were staying which was next to a beautiful resevoir. We all had showers and then had a huge banquet dinner before getting an early night to recover. The next morning some of us got up at 4 to try and see the sunrise and even at that time you still got hot really quickly climbing the wall. The group split into 2 with Martin in the front one that ...

... a psychedelic wonderland when night falls. According to the organizing committee, to ensure the high quality of the ice lanterns, all the ice blocks from which they are carved are brought from the headstream of Longqing River, which is 20 kilometers from the gorge in Yudu Mountain. The temperature there is usually several degrees lower than in the gorge and the thickness of the ice blocks can reach 50 centimeters, a perfect size for carving ice sculptures ...