Today Yvonne took us just over the border into China to a place called Shenzen. This place is amazing. It's basically 5 floors of designer copies which are so good you can't tell the difference between a real one and a fake one. Everywhere you go you get "missy missy want DVD" or "missy missy want handbag". As there is a high police presence a lot of the handbag shops (in particular) will only have no name brands at the shop but will give y...

This morning after breakfast we checked out of the Howard Johnsson Hotel and headed to the Beijing Zoo. The Beijing Zoo has a special Panda enclosure where it houses 6 pandas. Our guide previously has not had any luck when taking people there as the pandas have always been asleep but luckily for us they were awake and we came at feeding time so we got to see them in eating action. After the pandas we went and checked out some of the other areas of the zoo. Th...

Today's first stop was to a Cloisonne/Enamelware factory. They walked us through the entire process of how to make the very beautiful pieces. It is very intricate work and takes a couple of weeks to make. After the tour they took us into the shop where you can buy everything from chopsticks and Christmas decorations to urns and plates. We spent a lot of money buying ourselves souvenirs. Next we went to the Great Wall at Badaling. It is amazing to see in rea...

We flew into China on a 8 am flight. Arrived into Beijing International airport at about lunchtime to absolute chaos. They had better sort it out before the Olympics. It took us 45 mins just to clear immigration and then another 10 minutes to try and find where our bags went. By that time our guide and driver had thought we had not turned up. We eventually found them though. We were introduced to Ma Li, our english speaking guide, and Leo our driver for the ...