Spirit animals, a Hilton stay and trucks vs cars

Oooooh - time for an update.

Here are some pics of our latest adventures ...

We had a great time back in Nanjing, which used to be the capital of China during the early years of the Ming dynasty. On the Purple-gold mountain is a 14th century Ming emperor tomb which has a 1/2 km + spirit walkway of stone animals and guardians up to the tomb.

 Here we are outside the entrance to the tomb - it's not only Japanese schoolgirls who can pose like this...

Nanjing is one of only a few ancient cities that still has it medieval walls, and we spent some time exploring them. Built between 1366 and 1393, what was really cool was finding the stamps on many of the bricks that showed the brickmaker's name and date - if the bricks were poor quality and broke, the emperor would know who to blame!

 Sunset over the city of Nanjing from Xanwu Lake.

Back in Shanghai, we spent a bizarre day at this satellite city Meilan Lake - based on a Swedish town - this is one of the towns that has been built to copy different European cities (we visited Thames Town based on London several months ago) - it actually seems pretty authentic (at least from a distance) - up close, it's, well, just weird ...! There are Spanish, Dutch, German and Italian towns too ... may or may not go to see them too!

We spent last weekend in a city called Hefei - 3 hours inland from Shanghai by bullet train- including some great scenery and crossing the huge Yangtzee River. The town is a little off the tourist trail, which made it a bit more interesting to visit for us. Also ... the Hilton there was having a super special deal, and so instead of our usual hostel stay, we splashed out ($75) on a room at the Hilton - and loved it. LOVED IT!

In one of the local parks we came across this procession of people who were renacting something - no idea, but it looked like they were having a blast. One woman with a (hopefully fake) moustache, a couple of others with boats strapped around them!

 On a sidewalk (the traffic there was the worst we have experienced in China) a truck and a car battled it out for dominance OF THE SIDEWALK/PAVEMENT! Unbelievable. Where could the motorbikes go?

We visited the cool underground tomb of Lord Bao from the 9th century - apparently a very decent chap who did lots of good things and now has temples and pagodas and stuff built for him.

That's all the photos. We also had a great time at a huge Elton John concert - packed full of Westerners! Andy had his final teaching assessment, our offers for next year our coming (no, we're not staying) and we're good. Planning and enjoying our final few weeks here.