This was our final day in Chengdu. We started with a visit to the People's Park where we did Qigong with Tary and then had free time to look around. There were various groups doing Tai Chi around the park. It was a beautiful park and enjoyed by many people. Lily told us that until the Olympics the people had to pay to go into the park but since 2008 they are free. All parks I've been to are well valued and looked after and obviously appreciated. This afternoon w...

It's 7.20am and we will be departing Chengdu today but not before we have done Tai Chi in the People's Park and then on to visit the pandas. From there we will be taking the night train to Wudang arriving Friday 15th April. No idea what internet connection will be like. I will keep up the blog but not sure when it will be posted and photos are even harder to upload. Rest assured we are all having a great time.

Today was our first Tai Chi practice in China. After breakfast we walked to the Wenshu Monastery where Tary situated us outside the temple. We immediately found ourselves the centre of attraction from the local people, some of whom joined in with us. Some of our group who didn't do Tai Chi went exploring the park or talking to local people. We did a couple hours of training then had some time to go wandering. The temple was being prepared for the number one monk...

We made it to the ancient village late but that worked out well as we missed the rain and all the crowds. It was lovely to walk through the old streets which weren't that old but very quaint. There was a river and it would have been good to have a go on a boat but we managed to amuse ourselves with a variety of activities such as dancing, Tai Chi and even a rifle range with balloons. Dinner was an amusing affair too as the waitresses thought it was comical to ta...

After a great nights sleep we had an early start with breakfast at 7am and on the coach for 7.30am! We didn't quite get off on time. The morning was a trip to the Giant Buddha at Leshan. The journey took about 2.5 hours but there was loads to see on the way and Lily passed some of the time with Mandarin lessons. We passed by lots of farmland and plenty of trees. It was quite hazy at this time but the sun did its best to appear at various points. Once we had ar...