There are nine million

Bicycles in Beijing according to Katie Melua (or was it Norah Jones?) Our tour guide today agreed. Have only seen 5 in use so far though. Apparently everyone has swapped their bikes for cars. Oh and mopeds that run on batteries. I thought I’d got the hang of all the mopeds in Hanoi. At least you could hear those blighters coming. These ones sneak up on you silently!

Arrived in Beijing at 8:18 right on time. Bus to hotel, drop bags off, grab breakfast, no early check in for us today so off we go sightseeing.

First stop Tiananmen Square. Despite Martyns firewall shenanigans there were no tanks for us thank goodness. Lovely big square with lots of big buildings all around. Meandered through square to Forbidden City.

At this point I started having quite significant flashbacks. When much younger my parents hired ‘The Last Emperor’ on video for us to watch. Remember that one Mum? As per usual Dad fell asleep but even Mum said it was a bit slow to say the least. I don’t think we made it to the end. Well now I have to watch that blasted film again as today our tour guide told us all about the Last Emperor and I’m walking along looking at things in the Forbidden City and reading bits in the museum thinking ‘where have I seen/heard this before?’ Then I remembered.

Well despite my mental anguish at the thought of watching this film again (I’m sure some people will tell me it was a great epic of cinematographic history or something) The Forbidden City is stunning. Huge but stunning. Exactly the same layout as the Purple City in Hue but that was just ruins, this one was MUCH bigger and still completely standing which was a big bonus!

After Forbidden City on to the Temple of Heaven which was pretty amazing as well. Here the Emperors made animal sacrifices to the gods for a good harvest. No nails at all involved in construction all dovetail joints, on a completely circular building. Cool.

I confess then back at hotel I fell asleep. Oops.

Dinner followed by acrobats show. Brilliant. Diablo tricks, jugglers, balancing acts but the piece de resistance was one of those balls that motorbikes go around in. These were proper motorbikes with engines not batteries and four of them got inside this ball and whizzed around. Mad. We’re thinking of asking our Easy Riders if they want to give it a go!

Now sleep, big day tomorrow. Guess where we’re going!