Morning everyone, Just a quick update of the last few days. Three days ago the weather cleared and we had bright blue sky so we went to Jingshan park which provides great views over the forbidden city. Its a short climb up the hill but it was soo hot that it felt like climbing everest. We had decided to leave this until a day when the smog cleared as the visability was so bad. Which meant the view was awesome but it was very crowded on the top. We managed to sq...

Hello everybody! Mrs P here, I have just read chris's blog from this morning and I may have slept in but i would like to say that it is now only half 9 in the evening and he is sparked outupstairs . . . I hope I can wake him to let me in! Today we went to see the Summer Palace, after a few false starts and getting off at the wrong metro we found it . . .(we may have caved and had pizza hut for lunch . . . Please don't judge us . . .) It was still beautiful despi...

Hi Everyone, We are now in Beijing. I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel using their free wifi. That's right I said HOTEL!! Thanks to Claire's parents and their holiday club we have two weeks in a five star hotel. Yes! Our train ride from Mongolia was pretty uneventful. We were shaing a cabin with an older english couple. John and Jacqui. It was lovely to have some brits to chat to. They were from Devon and had just moved to the New Forest. So for a few hours ...

Sorry for the lapse in contact, no web. China is beautifull if not a little challenging. Saw the forbidden city tday. Doing fine.

Hello everybody, today we had the chance to weigh our bags - here are the vital statistics . . . Chris = 24kg and Claire = 19kg! Phew! Yesterday we visited a buddhist temple just outside of town. We saw the morning prayers and they had an indoor 5 storey high buddah which was very impressive. Then we headed over to the 'international interlectual museum' which houses hundreds of wooden 3d puzzles, chess sets and toys. It was fun as we got to try to take the puz...