Rented bikes again today to go and explore the city some more, me, Az, smera and Debbie hit the road and only got about 500yards down the road before finding a restaurant that we quite fancied and stopped for brunch! Haha had some typical Chinese food which was so feckin nice! Mastered the chop stick skills on various meat noodle and rice dishes ( spent a lot of time laughing at az struggling with his) all eaten at the side if the road next to our bikes and didn't manage half the food and still spent under 2 quid!
On the bikes now and off to the summer temple of heaven, I o can't tell you how much i love cycling through Beijing with my friends, all smiling constantly, dodging the traffic, weaving in and out if cars and with the most spectacular buildings all around us. Me and az have been speaking and are seriously considering doing a stint on push bikes, the freedom is just unbelievable and all thanks to the inspiration of deb the machine!
Get to the temple which is set in a huge green area surrounded by rose gardens and beautiful trees nag open areas, but, no matter how fantastic it is, they are beginning to look pretty similar after the amount of similar buildings we've visited in the last week. So, forget the temple, something else happened inside the grounds of the temple of heaven that will stay one of the most memorable days of my life...

After wandering around for a while, constantly laughing and joking like us 4 seem to do, never, never a dull moment! We hear some horrible pumping euro dance music, in one of the mist peaceful places in Beijing. Looking for the source, we spy a little old Chinese lady in a tracksuit and sunglasses, probably nearly 60. She wanders past with a portable speaker in her hand blaring this music as if she doesn't realize! So we follow (obviously!) haha and she comes to this clearing in the park where there's about 15 or so other old Chinese people ( your typical quiet old Chinese person btw) blankets on the floor, more speakers blaring pumping dance music and all these women dancing to the music.... It was one of the most random things I've ever seen, so naturally me and az run up to join in and are welcomed with open arms and stand there, if this madly respected, spiritual park, dancing to this shockingly bad dance music with old Chinese ladies! They don't speak a word of English but we're all laughing along and having such a good time we don't realize the small crowd gathered around us, tour groups, teenagers, couples all there watching and taking pictures absolutely amazing! Then they get out this like big shuttlecock thing, 4 feathers out the top and a plastic weighted thing at the bottom we all get in a big circle the girls join in and we play this absolutely brilliant game with them for at least an hour, one of the best moments if my life so far, hard to believe but true! It's just like 'keep up' with a football but with this random feather thing!
Of course, we buy a couple of the shuttlecock things from a little kiosk and can't wait to get back and play it!

Get some beers from the supermarket then the fantastic 4 go out for an amazing dinner and more beers. Just, the best food ever Chinese in England Is absolutely no comparison, we chat laugh and generally chat about life and the future, I could do this forever :)