China was the place that we both felt would be the most interesting and the most mystical and Beijing has not disappointed us. Ming style buildings are everywhere but each is still as beautiful as the first. Some of the many sights we have seen are the Great Wall (we clambered up the Badaling section in 25 minutes then took about an hour taking photos!), the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven Park, Lama Temple and the Summer Palace. When Dave was ill I also went to Dongyue temple which is Taoist and has many 'departments' where people seem to place prayer cards as offerings and the departments are things such as the Department of Justice and Retribution, the department of the Hell (!) and some of my favourites 'the department of 15 types of horrible death' and the department of mosquitoes and insects (where if you are bad in your earth life you may turn into one of these). Very strange! Apart from the breathtaking beauty of the Summer Palace and the immensity of the Great Wall it has been interesting just viewing the Chinese and how they react to their surroundings. In the Lama Temple the devout came to worship buddhas and bodhasittvas by praying to them and lighting josticks whilst praying. Three seems to be the magic number: 3 josticks was the acceptable donation and they always bowed down 3 times to pray. The place was suffocating with the amount of jostick smoke!

Another lovely memory was in the Temple of Heaven Park where older people gather in their masses together to play cards, dance, sing and just generally chew the fat. Also in the Temple of Heaven park was some sort of exercise group (not Tai Chi but similar). Coming across them chanting and hitting themselves was bizarre to say the least! At the end of the session they all hit each other: I think it was a general health and fitness club, a bit like aquarobics but in a park in china. The group seemed to have a general exercise class then a bit of a massage/hitting session then a chat and them home. Odd!

My 2 favourite things were seeing Chairman Mao ('pickled Mao') and the Summer Palace. And the Great Wall (or 'Grate wall as it was advertised in our hostel). of course.

Next stop: a little fortified city called Pingyao. Population 40,000.