China 2018

We had another early start this morning. After breakfast we visited The Summer Palace, which was basically a place for the emperor to go and chill out - his gardens.  Now when I say gardens I mean a huge county park (probably bigger than Hyde Park) Peter told us that they started constructing this in 1750 and it wasn’t fully finished until 1850. It’s buildings included living quarters, Pagoda’s and a temple. The lake is man made and in warmer weather you can take the boats out.   We then headed to the Pearl Factory, the lady spoke about where they come from, different types of pearls and how to tell if they are real or fake. It was then time for the Silk Alley. Peter talked us through how to barter for the goods we wanted. We had around 1.5 hours in here, spent quite a lot of Yuan and had so much fun. The prices they start at were laughable but what we are paid for some of the items was more funny! We then headed for our last meal together. We reflected on our last 10 days

We started the day with breakfast at our hotel before heading out  at 830am  for the day. Our first stop was around an hour drive from our hotel - the Jade Market.  We were introduced to our host who told us a little bit about how the Jade is made into the sculptures that we could see around us.  We spent a little time watching some employees sculpting the Jade, it looked really difficult, the workers are certainly skilled! We then spent some time in their shop - it was all very expensive but we managed to make a few purchases. It was then time to head to the main attraction - The Great Wall. It was about a further 30 minutes by coach. We parked up and headed to the entrance. Peter told us some facts and figures while we were on our way. Looking up at the vast crawling walls it was difficult to believe that 6000km of this was built 500BC. We spent around 2 hours walking the south side of the Great Wall, some even managed the North Side as well (racing an old Chinese man back do

We had a great night sleep in our hotel. The breakfast included full English, cereals, fruit and pastries which was a welcome change to the traditional Chinese breakfast. At 830 we left and headed to Tianamen Square. It was being set up for an official ceremony as the Japanese Government had arrived for Congress. We then made our way to The Forbidden City. Peter spent lots of time talking us through the history of the Forbidden City, he told us about the different Dynasty’s and the reasons why the place was built. It was started in 1406 and was finished in 1420. The Emperor moved in in 1421 along with ‘his people’ who were farmers and produced enough food for the entire year.  We spent a lot of time exploring the the vast grounds before spending a little time in the imperial gardens before heading to our next stop.  Lots of the boys recognised the building from films they had watched. We headed straight to Hutong fo