We have arrived in the capital of the most populous nation on earth - Beijing or Peking as it used to be called. Home of the yummy duck, bicycles, Mao memorabilia and future home of the Olympic Games 2008. First impressions are, "yep, its another massive city in China" but after reading up on Beijing it has absolutely tons of history and subsequently loads to do. It is definitely in the midst of some kind of revolution and Western culture is cropping up everywhere - kissing couples in public and obese kids pigging out at McDonalds! After checking into our hostel we headed up the road to the Temple of Heaven Park. There's absolutely loads of symbolism in this place e.g. the halls are round and bases square in accordance with the belief that Heaven is round and the earth is square - interesting theory. At the round altar Steve stood on the stone representing the centre of heaven...nothing dramatic happened and he didn't see any one he recognised whilst there! The Echo Wall surrounding the Imperial Vault of Heaven was interesting. Apparently if 1 person stands at opposite ends you can apparently hear each other whispering as the sound travels along the wall. This doesn't work all that well when there are 15 Chinese people standing next to you screaming "Ni Hao" (Hello)! The following morning we headed into central Beijing after figuring out the buses (comfort is not an option - just keep on piling in the people). We arrived at Tiananmen Square - the symbolic centre of the Chinese Universe - expecting hoards of people and a great crush to see anything. We were pleasantly surprised though by how calm it all was, kites flew across the sky and everyone seemed to be in holiday spirits. There was of course lots of guards and policemen loitering about as well as plenty of CCTV so maybe people were afraid to do anything too crazy e.g. riding a bike, should they be struck down for not complying to the Chinese way! After inadvertantly ordering and eating duck's blood jelly stuff at lunch (totally disgusting), we spent the rest of the day doing very safe and extremely Western things - watched King Kong in English at the cinema and going to a British Pub called the John Bull for sausage and mash. It was just what the doctor ordered!