The start of our trip around Beijing

As facebook and blogspot are both banned in China it has taken a while to get access to update my blog, so I apologise!

Anyway, we have spent 4 days in Beijing and visited many well known places. We started by visiting another world wonder (another one ticked off my bucket list), the Great Wall of China. I roughly knew the scale of this monument before we visited, but it isn't until you see it for yourself you can truly appreciate the vast size and work put into producing this amazing place. We climbed up the mountain side to the top of the wall, where we were able to admire the beautiful views. We then walked along the wall, trekking up and down the mountain wondering how long it would take to walk the whole thing (baring in mind we only walked along 6 of the towers out of who knows how many).

Now to get down from the wall we decided we had walked enough already, so as a group we decided to toboggan down (who knew your could climb aboard a metal sleigh and scoot down a slide to the bottom) and it was such a laugh. Sorry no pictures! 

The next day we explored the forbidden city (which is a must when visiting Beijing). This was another beautiful but massive monument, spread over a kilometre in length. Most of the buildings had been repainted which did spoil the history a little bit, but it was still worth the visit.

Fact of the day: Chinese Kings and emperors idolised the lion (instead of the tiger, which can actually be found in China) because lions are top of the food chain and have many partners where as a tiger one has one. This was clearly shown by a past emperor of China (who lived in the Forbidden City) who had 3000 wives! I actually feel sorry for this man!

xx