Home Inn (Tongzhou Xinhua Street) Beijing

... be looked after by Jeff, his Dogfather. Jeff is my friend at work who absolutely loves Willow. Mostly because he thinks Willow is a babe magnet. So anyway, we are looking forward to some time away and time to relax and catch up on some reading, DVD watching and knitting. Yes, I have become a nanna, and have taken up knitting.
Last night we went to a 'crayfish party'. We had an awesome time. We have recently met a lovely couple through ...

... I calmed down, and then we cycled back towards the hostel.
It turned out to be an interesting night, I'd like to keep it short, but I can't. We stopped at the lake with the island in the middle, which has been transformed into the biggest mash of sounds coming from each bar: Karaoke, love-songs, rock, jazz, lights, chatter, each tussling for ear-space, and we walked past them, the girls not impressed, until we found a bar that was quieter and cooler (marginally) than the others ...

... We got similar gold medals at the end of Huashan, but these medals had a picture of the Great Wall on the back. We bought some "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirts before we got back on the bus. The bus ride was again 2 hours long, and this time most of us spent the time sleeping instead of singing. Once we got back to the hotel, we got ready for dinner. We walked to the restaurant and there we met up with Rebecca, Sammy, Rebecca's parents, Ian ...

... it. We climbed a very narrow, very steep stair case up to one of the many temples scattered about the park. The temple was called The All Spring Pavilion and it had amazing views of Beijing and the Forbidden city. The climb down was just as hard as the climb up, but once down we went and sat by a courtyard and watched two women doing Tai Chi. Its fantastic to watch. After they had finished one of the ladies came and sat down next to us and gave us a ...

... of the Emperor, they were filled with water to minimize the high risk of fire. Nonetheless, it seemed every building at one point or another was destroyed by fire and later rebuilt. In addition to the buildings, the City also has many historical artifacts like jade and ancient carvings from the Zhou dynasty (500 BC). Adam later told me that most of these are likely fakes - the Nationalists took all the real valuables with them when they fled to Taiwan. Today they are used as a ...

... destroyed the natural balance." He asked to remain anonymous because he could be punished for contradicting Chinese officials. Long swaths of the algae, which sailors have taken to calling fairways and blobs, have been thick enough that sailboats have become stuck in them, according to a blog by U.S. sailor Andrew Campbell. "Sometimes hundreds of yards long and up to a hundred yards wide, the blobs creep the water in massive waves of weed spoiling any racecourse in their path ...

... you need to watch "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" sometime in the near future. Yes, it'a movie about the Loch Ness monster. Yes, it is a little "Free Willy" meets "Jurassic Park" - but it's AWESOME. And of course it has a great theme song, courtesy of Sinead O'Connor. Oh man, I love that little sea monster. Anyway, enough about creatures of the deep, more on life in China later.

... que ya el numero de extranjeros iba aumentando. Ni siquiera me acordaba ya del mail que me había enviado Susana en el cual decía que no era conveniente el cambio de universidad. Estaba claro no había cambio de universidad por mi parte, me quedaba en Liaocheng definitivamente, y si os digo la verdad me parecía genial. Cada vez me encontraba más a gusto en la universidad, con mis compañeros, con la tranquilidad que ahí tenia y con las clases. Es cierto, no es muy ...

... and our lungs burned from the smog in the air, but the scale of the wall was incredible, if you consider that every stone was dragged up by hand. Then things went wrong. We had to take two buses to gt back to Beijing, one in the opposite direction to Badaling, the most touristy part of the wall, then one from there back to the city. Inexplicably the bus driver on the second bus seemed to have just wandered off for some reason, so we sat around for about half an hour. A ...

... outside with the woerkers within, their fate also sealed. It must have been terrifying to be watched by thousands of eyes, even though made from clay. As the workers starved slowly to death and would have suffered hallucinations and dellusion, they must have seen the faces of the warriors with great fear. The warriors are all so proud, so august. The detail on each one is sublime, the bottom of every shoe is finely printed upon, lapels all ...