Beijing.....we have arrived

Trip Start Oct 05, 2007
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Trip End Oct 04, 2008


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Monday, October 8, 2007

We have arrived in Beijing.....we thought we had landed in Wales when we first looked out of the window at the grey drizly world!!  It soon cleared up though and yesterday was a beautiful if a little bit blustery!!
On our first day we checked into our hostel and then set off on foot to the Temple of Heaven park, a beautiful park full of temples used by the emporer for worshiping the heavens!  It was amazing there, the buildings were so intricatly painted and the park was so peaceful and happy and beautifully kept!  There were little areas where people were singing and dancing or playing tennis or badmington even the odd bit of Thai chi going on!!  There was a covered walk way which you couldn't walk down without coming across a gathering of chinese people joining in with cards or singing etc!!
Yesterday we hired some bikes and set off on a (sometimes) terrifying journey round beijing!!  We saw all sorts of amazing things including climbing up - what must be the only hill in Beijing created from the earth dug out of the moat for the forbidden city - from the top you could see right across beijing the contrast of old and new was incredible!  In the evening we had our first real culinery experience - a bowl of tomato soup coooked at our table which then had added to it bean curd (seriously rank), yam and spinich!  It was actually the most random thing in the world....though i think our definition of random is going to get more random as time goes on!!
Anyway Kathryn has woken up now and i've run out of time so adious!!
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