Friday 22nd April - we walked from our hostel around the Forbidden City, through Jingshan Park, to the Lama Temple. We skirted around the outside of the City, which gave us some idea of how far back the City actually went. Jingshan Park, behind the City, was built from the soil evacuated to make the moat around the City, and as such it contains a hill from which you can get a view of the City. Although we'd walked around the City already, seeing it laid out befor...

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 -...

Ni hao! Shanghai has been really overwhelming and we're both suffering from culture shock. The people are loud and seem to need to shout everything all the time; the traffic is mad, cars are honking all the time and pedestrian crossings might as well not be there; the food is all completely unknown to us and even when the menu has picture of the food you're still not entirely sure what you've ordered and when it turns up it looks nothing like the picture anyway! ...