We left the station and drove straight to our hotel for breakfast, which was not up to the standard we had come to expect. The food was cold, the toaster took forever, instead of scrambled egg they have french toast which would be ok except that, the bread here is moderately sweet which just doesn't sit well with me mixed with the egg! We all complained and Grace spoke with the management so hopefully better tomorrow (see later blog). After brekkie we went up to our rooms and shortly after our cases arrived. Dad had a disaster in that a snowdome exploded in his case and made a monumental mess of liquid, glass and the finely chopped tinsel! We had to get a maid to come and vacuum. The room is very nice again and has everything we need. We met in the lobby at 11:30 and went off for lunch. As you are probably now beginning to see, this trip is a lot of eating interspersed with some sightseeing! Went to visit the old city wall which is really something. It is 4 kilometers by 3 kilometers and has 4 main gates with watch towers and assorted other towers. It is around 14 metres thick across the top and up to 18 metres across the base, and it is 12 metres high! The views from on top are great and you can hire bicycles and rickshaws or little electric buses to take you around. We decided to walk and took lots of photos but the smog was appalling and really limited the visibility. It was heavenly to be able to walk around in shirt sleeves though, as the temperature was around 16C! The current wall was built way back in 1370 during the Ming dynasty but was originally built around 198 BC and was much larger!

We left the wall and drove to the cultural museum which was very beautiful and had an enormous wealth of the history of the area and of Chinese civilization. Bought more presents and then drove to the calligraphy market street. This was a really interesting place and had book shops as well as the tools of the trade. Bought some stuff again and then dad and I went looking for a warm place to sit and have a drink before our meet-back-at-the-bus time and found the most beautiful little tea house/art shop that you could ever wish for. It had Chinese music playing softly and there was the most beautiful water feature. Other than the lady and her daughter who were working there, we were the only people in the place! Out the back was an art gallery. It was one of those absolute gems and I have just the two photos in the album but wish that I had more. Naturally we bought more stuff!

Finally we left and went to a restaurant for dinner (gee that's a surprise I hear you saying). Damned if I can remember anything about it now! Life's hard.

Catch you later.