Gathering pace... And a famous wall

Since leaving the huskies of Courtyard 7, our trip has gathered pace in the last couple of days... we took in Tiananmen Square, which is vast and almost entirely dedicated to Chairman Mao - who despite no longer being with us in spirit is definitely here in body... on show... frozen! We couldn't stomach a visit to see his corpse but you definitely get the feeling his presence is strong in the square. There is a big picture of him on one of the gates and we thought that somewhere there was a statue of him (having apparently seen it on TV!) but alas, the statue is in fact in Chengdu, not Beijing.

We also visited the Tao Che Tea House, wasting time whilst it was raining. We learned about the history of Tea in China depicted by miniatures.

We met the group of people we'll be staying with for the next 2-3 weeks, and our Chinese tour guide Vivien (her English name- we couldn't pronounce her Chinese name!) who did confirm that the Chinese government can make it rain - pity they couldn't stop it raining, on the way home after our first meal with the group we got our first soaking!

The Great Wall of China is spectacular! Whilst it is still a little foggy, it's possible to see a couple of miles along the wall in either direction. When you think about how much effort went in to making all 6000km of the original wall, and how much use it actually wasn't, it is astounding! We got a good work out on the walk up and the 2-3 hours or so we were on the top and rewarded ourselves by tobogganing down.

Our Chinese hasn't got any better unfortunately, when we try new words, the Chinese don't understand us so we resort to finding alternative words in English or if that doesn't work, sign language and pointing!

We're now only 5 days in to our 6 months- its going really well but our arrival seems like a long time ago already, we can't imagine what 6 months is going to feel like!