Day four in the big Beijing house. Well we have had to stay here so long as there is so much to do and see and not enough time or hours in the day.

After eventually dragging Claire out of bed as she was hanging out of her backside again we headed of to the train station to collect our tickets to get to Xian tomorrow to go and see some warriors.

We then headed out to the Summer Palace where the Mings and Qings used to spend their summers as it gets to hot in the centre of Beijing. Its a huge place with a massive lake, loads of Pagodas and lots of character. Yet again it is slightly run down and only gets used for tourism but is a must if you come visit here. There is a bridge that travels from the mainland to a small island that has 17 arches and is rather lovely, that was my fav part of today actually.

Claire and I had some local tea to that the Ming's used to drink and believe me it was proper rough to hence we didnt finish it.

The whole of the Summer Palace is a huge trek around and took us a good 3 hours to complete and we didnt get to see everything.

Anyway tomorrow a bit more sightseeing here before getting on our night train to Xian to see the warriors on Saturday morning which is all exciting.

Just so you know we are all being very cultural with the odd night out thrown in for good measure.