Big day today. On the bus at 7.30am, first early start we have had so far. We start off at the Summer Palace which is a huge man made lake surrounded by gardens and temples. The 2 metre deep lake was dug entirely by hand in 1420 and the subsequent dirt and mud made a hill on which the temple was built. This is as the name suggests the place where the emperors would come to escape the heat of the summer in Beijing as it sits in the mountains. The there is a long p...

This morning we returned to the City Wall and have time to climb the gates we saw last night and to take in some of the history and significance of these gates to the city of Xi'an. The moat that surrounds the wall is now visible too and is a beautifully maintained are of gardens and public park. It's common place top see the Chinese practicing TaiChi or different forms of meditation or exercise in the public parks. We arrive in Beijing just after 8pm after a ni...

This is our last day in Xi'an so we leave the hotel this morning with a fairly easy agenda. It's not raining and it's pleasantly cool at the moment. Our cases will meet us at the airport later today when we fly to Beijing. Last night on the way home from dinner and the show we drove past the city wall and one of the city gates. This morning we get the opportunity to explore the wall a little bit and to go inside the gate. It's hard to believe that this wall is st...

It's raining cats and dogs today in Xi'an. Today we are going to see the Terra cotta warriors. We start with a workshop where they now make replicas and where we see a demonstration of how the statues were made over 2000 years ago. The clay soil here in this region is what has preserved these statues for all this time. The Terracotta warriors museum is huge and divided into 3 pits. We are standing in the line waiting for a shuttle to take us to the 1st pit, all ...

I must say that this is the most relaxed land tours we have done. Our departure time from Yangshuo was 9.30am and we drove through the country side back to Guilin. For some of the trip Autumn our local Guilin guide was talking about her life in China. She taught us how to count to 5 in Chinese. We then had a quiet hour or so drive to Guilin and the South China Sea Pearl Museum. Here we were greeted by a very enthusiastic Chinese lady with a well rehearsed spiel a...