Route map-Beijing

Tiananmen square!

Forbidden Palace. Beautiful.

Little girl with an interesting hat, peeking into the palace interiors
Hawthorne berry uncle, at Jingshan Park. Was the BEST I ever had.

An elderly lady, writing Chinese calligraphy using water. Think abt it in an occupational perspective. A purposeful activity for her!

A warm and sincere welcome. Before it evaporates:)

Tian-tan. Emperors make the journey for pray to 'tian' for peace and properity

Another shot of tian-tan

Tian-tan, dusk. I love this shot. I really do.

Dusk. Bare branches against the sunset.

Baked starfish, fried scorpions, silk worm cocoons, sheep penises. Erm, need I elaborate?

The famous wang-fu-jing street! There were other niceties to eat, of course.

Ju-Yong-Guan, quite a renowned stretch of the Great Wall. The mountain slope is reeaalllyyy steep, a tough climb ahead!

But yea, I think I can do it!

The last of snow swept to the sides of the steps of the Great Wall. I feel like i'm embarking on an ancient journey, one that was traversed by many, thousands of years ago.

A view of the snow-capped mountains halfway of the ascent

I've reached the top!! Had a bad knee pain, almost wanted to give up. But i'm not alone at the top!

Friends from Jiangsu province. It's a wonderful experience at the top, you must all sorts of people from different countries.

A lady from Moscow, Russia. In her sparse English, she said 'friendship, friendship', gesturing the picture that we had taken. It warms the heart in the cold,cold weather.

Bird nest! Haha, memories of the Olympic games?

With a family from Gansu province. The baby was in a bundled in layers of clothes, and a bunny suit to top it off.

A man with a smoking pipe

Shui-li-fang at night. Like I can almost poke the bubbles on the outside of the box! It's actually a swimming complex

Light on the street. Foggy at night, and downright cold.

Exploring the windy lanes or 'hu-tongs' in the Beijing city by tricycles. Mighty fun!

Lu-gou brige. Where the Japanese first declared war in China, where the 1st shot took place.

The bridge is abt 1000 yrs old.

Imperial palace. Boats are not out for rent in this cold weather.

Chang-lang/long corridor. Each painting is unique and different along the long hallway. Delicate and very beuatiful paintings.

Can you see? Half the lake is still frozen. It's early spring, and the weather is coldest when the ice is just melting.

Breathtaking! As pretty as a picture. Frozen lake and bare trees, buds are just starting to peek out

Summer palace. I love the tranquility of this place. Walking along the edges of the frozen lakes, larks singing in the early spring. I'd want to come back here again.

It's like being frozen in time. Everything is so...still. And yet there's life beneath the bareness of it all, waiting for the right time to colour the starkness of it all.

The ruins that are left after the barbarious Europeans and Americans destroyed it all.

That's a tree shedding its bark, giving way to spring:)

Inside Qing-Hua university. Mum and I rented bicycles to explore the school compounds. Lotsa fun!

Inside Peking University. The tower inside the school. It was used for pumping water from the ground in the olden days.

It was a strange, fun and new experience for me. I was poking the ice on the lake with a bamboo stick, and it gave way after a few hard knocks. It's like breaking glass, and it's so, so FUN! This is a thick block of ice, at the edge of the lake. I stamped hard with my feet!

Kids at the train station at Macs. The most interesting Macs I have ever been to in my life. The kids were having leftovers from strangers (dad was outside, no idea what he was doing), a vagabond sat beside me eating instant noodles, mum and child came in to beg, and the vagabond was saying they were cheats. Real eye-opener. Shady people came in and out. Gotta watch out for those bags. That's the Beijing train station for you, people from all walks of life, all sorts of places, moving onto their next destination.

Real crowded at the train station!

There were 3 bunks- bottom, middle, top. Mum and i were at the middle bunk (she's opp me, tt's how she could take the pic, haha!) I can't sit up in the middle bunk, i'd hit the top bunk. Do you guys understand? It was a nice experience, going to sleep, feeling the train chugging along the tracks, rocking one to sleep. To Da-lian!

I have more pics and adventures, but I shall upload those another day!