Beijing

Tuesday saw us heading off to Mutianyu to see the wall. It's a reasonably accessable section but not as heavily visited as Badaling where most tours go. As it turned out it was a good choice. The place was virtually deserted so it was easy to wander around looking at things without having to queue for everything. In fact often there was nobody else in sight at all. It is a pretty stunning piece of engineering and an amazing testament to people's ability to achieve great things; pretty inspiring really. Of course the Mongols could, and did breach the wall plenty of times so I think it was more a statement of imperial power (and a warning not too get uppity) than a real military boundary.

After that expedition we got to eat dinner for free at one of Beijing's most up-market restaurants - something I never expected to be doing and which will probably never happen to me again . . . It all came courtesy of Paul's work. A client for the company he works for wanted a list of good restaurants and Paul had to check some out! The food was pretty yummy!

Wednesday had us heading down to see the Forbidden City, an exercise that took all day. There are about 9000 rooms in the whole complex and it's all pretty surreal but again, an amazing accomplishment. The decadence is hard to take in.

We had dinner with an old friend of Laura's and then went from the sublime to the ridiculous by heading to a Karaoke bar where Laura and her friend were subjected to intermittent doses of my unimpressive vocal prowess.

Tomorow we head to Changchun, where the last Emperor had his residence as a puppet of the Japanese. At -19C it'll be an interesting experience for us.

So far although it has been cold, it has been gloriously clear and easily bearable. I'll be reaching for the gloves tomorrow evening though when we get off the train.