Back from Beijing - fabulous time ....
Tiananmen Square and the Gate of Heavenly Peace with the famous large portrait

 Our day on the Great Wall - we chose wisely and went to a less touristy section where we hiked for a few hours. Caught a ski lift up to the top of the mountain, and rode a toboggan down - very fast and a little scary!

 We spent several hours at the Forbidden City - an amazingly huge area originally only for upper classes/emperor.

One of our favorite spots - Ghost Street - packed with restaurants and lit up with thousands of glowing Chinese lanterns ...

 Rush hour on the Beijing metro - has to be seen and experienced to be believed.

 Walking along one of the many hutongs in Beijing - old alleyways and streets filled with character and interesting nooks and crannies
















At one of the food markets - these are called bingtanghulu - icesugarthing - look delicious. The market also had sharks, snakes, snails, spiders and sheep penis for sale too.

 Another fabulous street full of interesting things ...!!!

 Here we are at the Summer Palace - the country (ish) refuge of the emperor and his clan

 So we had a great trip - really enjoyed Beijing. In addition to these experiences, we tried original Peking (Beijing) duck, drank beers with some Australians we met, studied bizarrely mutated carp/goldfish at a breeding center for creating 'collectable' fish, and visited the 2008 Olympic venue and saw the famous Birds Nest.

On to planning our next trip ...
All is well.
Oh and more strange things on bikes -
3. A kebab barbecue (very portable)