Tuesday 12th April - Arrived in Nanjing.

Wednesday 13th April - Around Nanjing. This is a walled city so being the good tourists we are we went for a walk along it. Walking along the wall leads you to Zijin Mountain, a national park which holds the Ming Xiaoling Tombs - the burial place of the only Ming emperor buried outside Beijing. The tomb complex is very impressive, and being set in the moutains it meant we had a very pretty walk too.

Thursday 14th April - Fuzi temple and Yangzi River Bridge. We also visited the Fuzi Temple, which was once the centre for confucian studies. After making a small donation we got to ring a massive bell and pound a massive drum, which was fun! We then headed to the bridge. We got a taxi there, which caused a little cause for concern when he veered off the main road and started driving through little alleyways. This impressive double decker bridge spans the Yangzi River. The bridge itself was originally a joint venture between the Russians and the Chinese but before it was finished the Russians and Chinese fell out and the Chinese had to complete the bridge on their own. Apparently this is a rpud achievement in the eyese of the Chinese.

Friday 15th April - Nanjing to Beijing. We had some time to kill before our ovenright train to Beijing, so we walked around the Xuanwu Lake Park. This is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin! In the lake are a few small islands and these have been joined together with big bridges so you can walk across from one side of the lake to the other. As we were walking we got stopped by some students. For their English homework they had to survey English speakers with a questionnaire they'd made themselves. Apparently their teacher wasn't impressed with their first attempt so they were having to do it again! They questionnaire was about marriage, with questions like what age did we think people should get married and what are imporant qualities for a couple to have. The girls were really cute, very giggly.

Saturday 16th April - arrived in Beijing. We got the overnight train from Nanjing. It took 10 hours and we made the mistake of getting seats rather than bunks. Very uncomfortable seats. That was a long ten hours. Nanjing is much like Shanghai. We decided to stop there to break up the trip to Beijing a bit. Our hostel was a little out of town, and the sights are all spread out around the city, so we took taxis most places. And they were terrifying! There seem to be no road traffic rules at all here - lane markings are merely suggestions, stopping at traffic lights is optional, and pedestrians? Well, they'll probably move out of the way.Beijing is much calmer than Shanghai, so we're enjoying it a bit more! Our hostel, Leo Hostel, is just round the corner from Tianenmen Square and the Forbidden City and near a tube station so it's in a great location. It's quite a cosy hostel with a large TV constantly playing movies. In fact, it's a little too cosy and it makes it hard to leave and face China!

Sunday 17th April - Tianenmen Square. It's the world's largest public square, and it's hard to imagine it as one of the most important sights in China. It's surrounded by large government offices and there are huge LCD TV screens at one end. THe square itself is interrupted by a massive building right in the middle. This houses the preserved body of Chairman Mao in a crystal coffin. We didn't visit this though. Chinese people queue up everyday to pass in front of the coffin and to lay flowers at the foot of a statue of Mao, and it just didnt feel right to join in just so we could gawp at him. The only time you get a sense of the Square's histroy is when you look up at the Forbidden City end of it, where there a loads of tiered seats of officials to sit in and watching passing army parades.

Monday 18th April - the Forbidden City. This place is massive. We spent a whole day there and only saw a about a third of it. Emperors would spend their entire ruling time here, rarely leaving, so the city has several temples, living quarters for the emperor, his wife and concubines, and buildings for all the staff. It is beautiful though, you could understand why the emperors didnt feel the need to leave! Several buildings have been turned into museums and we visited the clock exhibition in one of them. The clocks were magnificent, so ornate! Loads of them had several moving parts but none of the clocks are still working so we didn't get to see them in action.

Tuesday 19th April - Temple of Heaven Park. This is just a park with some temples in, but the locals seem to really enjoy it. We saw dozens of people dancing to folk music that was blaring out of a speaker, people of all ages playing hackie sack, some people singing... after the madness of Shanghai, it was really nice to see the locals relaxing and enjoying themselves for a change.

Wednesday 20th April - the Great Wall. We went on a trip organised through our hostel as they knew a section of the wall that tourists weren't taken to. Unfortunately that means we have no idea where we went! It was two and a half hours away but it was worth it. The hostel was right that no-one else went there. Instead of the bus loads of tourists that other sections see, the only people there were the ones on our minibus and a handful of Chinese. We spent a coupld of hours walking along a section of the wall and it was so peaceful. Well, apart from the distant sound of artillery fire. En route we passed several tanks and army bases so they must have been doing some drills nearby.

Thursday 21st April - Nothing. It rained all day so we decided to have a day off sight-seeing and mooched about planning the next leg of our trip.

Bye!
Lindsay and Chris