Malcolm and Shona in New Zealand : Highights of China

After a mad time sorting tickets, handing over at work, sorting the flat, packing and repacking, trying to sell the Jazz, having final flat whites/ glasses of sav blanc etc with friends and generally going in ever faster, in ever decreasing circles we eventually flew off to Beijing via Singapore.

We joined a friendly group of 7 folk on the Exodus tour with our excellent friendly guide Kris.

First stop - Tianenman Sq and the Forbidden City.

The square is VAST and as you'd expect full of militaristic symbols

Strangely there was nothing to mark the famous student versus the tank stand off!

Then on to the Forbidden City, which was again vast and very colourful having been repainted before the 2008 Olympics. This huge palace was the major administrative centre for the whole empire, so there were many huge open spaces and meeting halls, and as we found everywhere it was FULL of people!

The characters on the edges of the roofs below indicate that this was a royal palace and this has the maximum number of animals so this was the Emperor's building.

All very majestic but not very personal - it must have been a rather uncomfortable place to live!

We did see some places on a more human scale including having a meal in one of the local Hutongs (sort of old side streets),street food for breakfast and a visit to a very enthusiastic but rather odd chap who breeds Fighting Crickets - not to mention a rather strange Kung fu show!