A Tree An Elephant And A Hat

No this title is not the start of a bad joke, I went to Beijing for the weekend. There I got to visited China's Garden wall; very impressive, very pretty but a little excessive; most people make do with a hedge for privacy. This was the section at Mu Tian Yu.









The forbidden city



Tianamen Square










Sweet Potatoe Salesman (with cool on the move weighing scales) and KFmrLees?


















Oh and the reason for the title...
the following are the chinese characters for beijing (yeah a tree and an elephant with a hat).

北京

Im on top of a Mountain

What the hell am I doing? I'm not covered in Bee's, just at the top of a mountain with ridiculously steep sides. Huashan has a reputation for being the most dangerous mountains in the world (100 deaths a year.. tip if someone fell off 3 days ago, today is a bad day to visit). But they have improved the paths, put in railings (in most places) and there is even an austrian cable car up to the north peak now. Still, you couldn't help wondering.

But it was beautiful, a gorgeous day despite forecasts of fog and clouds and well... take a look.


















The red ribbons are for luck, the paddlocks are left by visitors to the mountain (get your name engraved on your padlock for 20yuan) for good luck also. The golden gate up near the north peak has something to do with it.




It did take three buses to get us to the cable cars, which was slightly bizare. We caught a bus, to catch a bus to get tickets to get on a bus to...

Ni Jiao Shenme Mingzi?

James or thanks to my students, Tian Ying Hua 田英华 aka Field (family name translates directly into a surname) Ying - england, Hua - abrv* for China. So English Chinese good relations basically. A tad on the girly side, seeing as Hua said with another tone means flower... but I can live with that. And yes, I can write my name.





*abrv is an abbreviation by the way; but you have to guess what for.

Its like riding a bike on the Xi'an City Wall

You never forget how hard you held onto the handle bars of the tandem bicyle or the menacing row of pot holes swiftly approaching. The Xi'an city wall is well worth a wander. We walked around half of its 8 and a half mile length (in a rectangular shape) and cycled the rest. Hopefully I will have a video of the death tricycle ride home uploaded soon.


Half way point, the north gate is hiding somewhere beneath the castle/fort in this photo


This is Xi'an train station as viewed from the city wall


Slightly less prosperous parts of the city


Ma Jiang (Ma Jong) being played by a group of friends (we assume)


The south east corner of the city wall

China Horror Picture Show

I have no idea what Halloween is about but Clare organised a cake and CCS staff found some pumpkins. Following on from a shopping spree for cheap tacky items and weird and wonderful clothing; well just have a look at the photo.