Here we are in the ancient city of Pingyao ! What an awesome step back in time. The cover picture for this blog entry is our private courtyard in the Hou family house, the house is made up of 5 courtyards like this with each courtyard being dedicated to workers, academics, a garden and even a temple. The house was built in 1736 and its stunning. Beijing was awesome, the great wall was the highlight for me - it takes your breath away when you consider the history...

I'm loving china so far everything is just so fascinating and the food and people are awesome!!! It's all made easier by the fact that your money goes so much further over here. For the price of a modest motel in nz we have got an apartment in Beijing that is as big as our house minus one bedroom and has two enormous marble bathrooms both with showers one of which you could fit five people in if you were so inclined. We had the Beijing speciality of Peking duc...