For a number of reasons we are at Heathrow with a 4 hours wait for our connection to Manchester so I thought I'd take the time to type up some observations.
What you won't have realised is that all the blogs since Hong Kong have been published by Emma!. Our first opportunity to publish ourselves wasn't until we reached Beijing where we quickly discovered that access to any sort of blogging website, along with Facebook and Youtube (which we did know about) was blocked. Surprisingly we could get onto our google email and it has been through this service that we have been sending our blogs to Emma. Incidentally, we think the chat service through google email is also blocked as we started a conversation with Emma only for it to go down and we couldn't get back on.
Despite these shortcomings there is no doubt that Beijing or China I should really say is a country in a hurry. Construction is going on everywhere you look, although we did discover that most buildings are built with only a 40 years lifespan which is rather interesting. Would we go back? There's certainly plenty for us to see in Beijing alone to warrant a return. We wished we had done what Faye and John are doing which is to fly to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors and then fly home via Hong Kong. From what they have said, I honestly don't think it would have cost too much more. I would have liked to have visited the Panda Nursery which was featured on a TV programme but was certainly an overnight stay. A thought was that it could be a stopover point if we were to go to New Zealand, but there's much to decide.
Our minds are full of statistics. eg: Bridal parties often have their pictures taken at least 6 months before the wedding and the pictures are on display during the ceremony. I did wonder what happened if the wedding was called off! During our fleeting visit to the Forbidden City certainly at least one bride was having her picture taken. Laura, our guide from yesterday, said they would have to be very wealthy as the cost of using the FC as a backdrop is very expensive. Apparently also it is the groom's family who pay for all costs of a wedding.
I'm sure we will think of lots more things to say and we will certainly be looking at downloading some pictures. As Stephan has taken in the region of 1200 pics this may take some time so please bear with us as we unscramble our brains and perhaps add more things that we think you might find interesting.
We have been extremely lucky with the weather as it has been pleasant during the day and only cooling down at night. What we have discovered is that the atmosphere is extremely dry and in consequence along with being thirsty all the time, our skin has taken a bit of a beating. I don't know what it will be like in the summer as the weather will be very hot and, therefore, could be humid.
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