Day 15: Beijing - Tiananmen Square - Oct 4, 2009

Beijing! I am finally in the capital of China! This is amazing! It's quite an incredible feeling to be in such a major city of the world - with some of the longest and most interesting history in the making of civilisation.

After checking in to our hotel, we took the local public bus to Tiananmen Square, where we had to get off a bit away, as everything was blocked. There must have been a million people trying to get to and from Tiananmen Square, and that is no exaggeration! Thirty minutes later the cattle crush with us in it arrived at the beginning of the square, but I didn't even recognise it, as you couldn't even see the square for all the people and as well all the colourful floats from the National Day parade were exhibited around the sides. Joanne pointed out the tree lined road next to the museum where "those" tanks had previously rolled down many years ago, and that was the first time I could make out a few landmarks. A couple of us started the trek through the crowd to get to the other side of the square and finally made it to the famous view of Mao above the gates to the Forbidden City. My tip for anyone coming to Beijing is to perhaps not visit during the National Day holiday, which lasts for 8 days. Of course, at this time Mao's Mausoleum was also closed due to the crowds. We had a local guide, Cindy, show us through the Forbidden City - layers upon layers of palace quadrangles. It would definitely have been impenetrable it its day.

In the afternoon a couple of us went to the Temple of Heaven Park, with its beautiful blue-roofed temples. It was really relaxing to walk around, watching Chinese playing shuttlecock, enjoying themselves dancing, and joining together to sing.

That night we went to the spectacular Shaolin Monks Kung Fu show which was brilliant. Some of the acts made me wonder whether there was a trick to it, as it was hard to believe that their bodies didn't have any marks on them after being squished on beds of nails and whacked with metal bars!