Tuesday 22 May 2018 Beijing China

For those who have been following our China trip, Deb has asked me to do a “and they lived happily ever after.” blog today, rather than the full on “Once upon a time” version. We are both very tired and need to get to sleep earlier than 11:30pm tonight. So here it goes. (If you’re good I might try to do the “once upon a time” version on the flight to Hong Kong tomorrow.)

We started the day with a visit to the Summer palace. It’s set on huge grounds with a large lake. We took a boat ride across the lake. It was very windy and we actually saw some blue sky.

From there we went to a Pearl factory/showroom, not impressed.

Then we went to lunch. Another Chinese feast where we were given and I ate way too much.

Next stop was Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. To quote Deb, ” Tiananmen Square is very big” (I cleaned it up for the little ones). It can hold 1,000,000 people, and has Mao’s tomb off to one side.

Next a quick walk through the tunnel under Donghaumen Road ( which was designed by Mao to be an emergency runway) and we arrived at the entrance to The Forbidden City. It is called The Forbidden City because the ordinary people were forbidden to enter it. It is very big also, around 1km long, with many palaces within it and a rock garden.

Deb’s favourite part of the  day was 15 mins during free time in the Forbidden City.  A Chinese grandmother was most insistent that her two grandchildren approx 2 & 3 years of age sit next to us and have their photo taken with us.  They didn’t want any part if us to begin with, but we soon won them over and lots of photos were taken.  Then the grandmother’s friends all came over and lots more photos were taken.   On that note I have had lots of Chinese people come up to me and want to have their photo  taken with me.  Deb thinks it is the beard.

From there it was back to our hotel to freshen up for our farewell dinner.

Dinner started with Peking Duck, yes Peking Duck in Beijing(Peking) fitting start to our farewell dinner. As with lunch, dinner was another chinese feast where we were given and ate way too much. This time with Chinese sorghum spirit (Firewater 46% alc) wine, beer and soft drinks.

After dinner we did a bus tour of the city at night, then back to the hotel for a group photo.

Hong Kong tomorrow, leave the hotel at 8am.