We visited the Summer Palace today late in the afternoon. The summer palace was used by emperors in the summer time to escape the heat of the forbidden city. The palace contains a huge solid marble boat. Arranged our hotels and train journey to Shanghai for tomorrow night, then headed out on the town!

Today we took a tour bus to the Great wall and the Ming Tombs. It was a bit of a cloudy day so the views weren't as good as hoped for but it was still breath taking! The Ming Tombs were built to house the emporers bodies of the ming dynasty. On the way to the wall we visited A jade factory, one of China's famous treasures. We also saw how modern vases were made.

Our day began with a visit to the Temple of Heaven. This is where emporers prayed for good harvests. Afterwards we visited Beijing Zoo described in lonely planet as 'death row'!! Although it is getting better and now has an excellent Aquarium where we watched a dolphin show. In the evening we went to see a Chinese acrobat performance where Jay was the star of the show!! He was picked out for a bit of audience participation and we have it all on camera!!! He...

Today we decided to visit the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace) behind Tian'anmen Square 720,000 square meters, 800 buildings, 9,000 rooms! And to top it all off Roger Moore was our audio tour guide!! We walked for miles! Outside the Forbidden City lies Jingshan Gongyuan park, a ramble up it's hillside really increased the chafing legs!!! But from here we could see across Beijing and the Forbidden City!

Jay's Birthday!!! Our first full day in Beijing and we decided to head down to Tian'anmen Square. On our way we got suckered into going to see some chinese artwork by three students who then wanted us to buy one at the end - a bit awkward but being the tightarses that we are there was no way we were buying one!!! We then met 2 Chinese girls who became our guides for the day and showed us around Tian'anmen Square and old Beijing. They suggested we go for a tra...