China Post 4: More Tourism

Hello everyone.. yes its time for another exciting update..but this time from our Kung Fu enabled Boy Scout Dave and for those that are wondering, yes it does similarity of this posting to a School / Scout event report is in my view unavoidable. Once your trained to write-up your adventure in that style its impossible to break...especially in one so young :)
Anyhow onto the report...



"Our Sightseeing continued on the 2nd day with am earlier start, K8 and I continued to skip the six am Chi Gung practice during the sightseeing as sleeping seemed just as important.

We again boarded our Bus and headed to Tianamen Square. After about an hour we arrived and trekked towards the forbidden city, constantly besieged by Chines Kite and postcard Hawkers, all crying "HELLO, You want Book?" and similar.

We made it into the Forbidden city, which was BIG (robbie: Check it out here) it is surrounded by a 52m wide moat and 12m Tall walls. We were led relentlessly through enormous courtyards and interesting rooms by our guide Mr Wu who has been a tour guide for years and knows loads about imperial concubines and other fascinating topics. Just as at the summer palace he set a break neck pace periodically stopping so we could take photos.

In the Gift Shop near the north Gate we found a woman painstakingly Reverse painting on the inside of Glass spheres. After that we headed through the imperial gardens to a Tea House where we got to see a Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony and tasted 5 different Teas including a special Slimming Tea. (robbie: Please bring back lots of this magic tea)

Having enjoyed our stop at the Tea house we carried on to The Alter of Heaven and its surrounding Park. This we discovered is Where Xu Laoshu our incredible 65 year old Tai Chi and Ba gua Teacher normally Trains, we had however missed him by a scant ten minutes.

That evening we dined at a very pleasant restaurant in the Olympic village. The Village and its nearly finished "Birds nest Stadium" Will have an example of every different type of Chinese Architecture and looks very Eclectic even half finished.

Still to come THE GREAT WALL and Back to Training..."