Almost a full month on since my last blog! Yes, time has evaporated at a rate of knots recently, as I am sure you will agree. Only 7 weeks until we drink, eat and spend far too excessively during our Christmas celebrations.

My last blog 'Beijing the Beginning....' was to settle into my groove, so to speak. No doubt annoying and disappointing all those who thought, on accessing my blog site, would find prize winning material that would be both amusing and maybe even proportionally interesting.

Apologies for the let down on that front but as I said this is more of an experimental account of events I am endeavouring to piece together, however still open to suggestion, with the exception of 'Stop writing'.

So, October brought the longest National Holiday that the Chinese had ever seen. Why? Well, October 1st is National Day and 2009 saw the 60th anniversary in commemorating the founding of the 'People's Republic of China' or the communists victory - you choose. So an 8 day holiday was declared which saw around 80 million Chinese (Combined population of the UK and Ireland) seize the opportunity to travel to their home cities to visit loved ones and other popular areas of the 'Motherland'. An '8 day' holiday was a slight exaggeration however, given as many were made to work the following weekend to make up for lost ground!

We, Jessica and I, stayed put in Beijing and took the opportunity to visit some of the main sites in our now 'Home City'. We predicted they were likely to be less populated as 'Beijingers' were off elsewhere. A slight miscalculation and quite horribly stupid of us to think that; as of course for every 1 resident that had deserted Beijing's streets to travel, there were 3 that had travelled to their capital for their own National Holiday getaway.

My excitement levels during the lead up to October 1st were high as Beijing had promised the biggest visual celebration in its history, dwarfing that of the 2008 Olympics which, I hear were rather magnificent. Tiananmen Square was to play centre stage and I had hoped to be there, indulging in the festivities. However a few days before I was made aware that Tiananmen Square was an invitational affair only and performers aside, the audience was to consist of government officials, Counts, Dukes and Lords or at least their Chinese equivalents. In addition to that, anywhere within a 3 mile radius of the Square was sectioned off and closed to the public - including public transport systems. High security was the order of the day and people were encouraged to stay at home and to kindly keep window shutters down and curtains pulled to avoid suspicion of attempted misdoings. Beijing's residents of the 'Peoples Republic of China' enjoyed 'their' grandest celebration ever (they did keep to their promise) from the comfort of their homes on TV - sad but true.

Moving swiftly on from that disappointment, a decision (against advice) was made to head to what I was told would be a manic Great Wall. Only an hour and ½ journey from the apartment and I was standing on the 'Badaling' section of the Great Wall of China! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badaling) One of those places you have heard so much about and, at least for me, dream of one day standing upon and now the dream has been realised. In its heyday the wall stretched for around 8000km (almost as far as London to Los Angeles!) today, barely a third is still visible with the majority being in ruins, something I was originally unaware of. Sections have been restored and made accessible to the public for a very reasonable fee of around £4 /$6. Hoards of people yes; but that intensified the experience for me and the most pleasurable part about it was that they were almost all Chinese - it's not often you visit a major tourist attraction flocked to by the country's own people. As a result, on occasion we posed for photographs like animals seen for the first time - always good fun.

It has suddenly dawned upon me that my drivel has already taken up 1 A4 page and there is so much more to divulge, so to speed things up - sort of.

The Old Summer Palace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace) was another of the sites visited. It is known as the old one, funnily enough, due to a new one being built since; this after the original was all but destroyed by the English and French military's back in the 1860's - yet more glorious English history to be proud of! To describe it simply the Palace consists of vast grass and wooded areas as well as the odd mammoth lake for good measure - all very picturesque. Then there are the ruins of what once stood in glory, which are now crumbled and trampled on daily by the Palace's visitors. Once again there was ample photo sessions with the dumbfounded Chinese tourists who probably now have both Jessica and I framed and on their living room walls - just all so odd!

Just to quickly mention that we were on the way to the Summer Palace the day before but we came across a substantial amount of excited Chinese at an entrance to a site unknown to us. We thought we would investigate and soon realised that the excitement and flash photography was in ore of China's most famous university ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_University ) - a highlight on anyone's agenda. We strolled around and questioned the logic of it all but soon gave up.

The final holiday outing took place at the China Tennis Open where I saw live tennis for the first time, which I have to say met my expectations. Seeing the likes of Rafa Nadal and Marat Safin win was all very exciting and it has prompted me to definitely make Wimbledon a must see - if and when I am in England at the right time.

I haven't even mentioned the Olympic area but the pictures tell all the necessary words and I have used far too many unnecessary words already.

To recap on other news- I am loving work. The children are great and teaching seems to be right up my street with the children appearing to enjoy my teaching style; being amongst so much energy and happiness does make attending work a daily pleasure.

Mandarin language is now coming along, if anyone wants to learn a language I do recommend Pimsleur http://www.pimsleur.co.uk/ for the beginners phase. They got me up and running with my Portuguese and I can already successively pass through most day to day scenarios in Mandarin.

Ok, so I think I can end this now, uncomfortable as it may be having now read it through. If you have accidentally stumbled across this thinking of coming to Beijing and my account of events has put you off then please ignore my drabness as Beijing has enough to keep you occupied and more for a short stay.

Until the next…….