Day 2 Saturday 27th April

Breakfast at our hotel was excellent with a wonderful selection of both western and Chinese food. Our coach is full. There are 42 of us, mainly couples around our age. Before heading out today I did have a little scary incident when I became trapped in the fire escape for quite a few minutes after my card would not activate the lift and left me stranded! Today we headed out and were able to see the huge city of Beijing in daylight. The city was much cleaner and neater than I imagined with many lovely trees, gardens and kerbside plant displays. It’s hard to imagine that the total population of Australia live in this city (23 million people). Our first stop was a pearl factory where we were shown the fresh-water pearls and Rob won a small pearl after guessing approximately how many pearls were to be found in an oyster shell. Some of us may have spent a few dollars here. Following this we visited Tiananmen Square one of the largest public squares in the world. We saw the large painting of Chairman Mao on the wall of one of the gates to the Forbidden City, many soldiers and quite a few visitors, though we were pleasantly surprised as it was not as crowded as we thought it might be. We walked from here to the magnificent Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City. Our guide is excellent and explained the history of the palace and the Emperors, concubines etc. extremely well. Unfortunately, the rain set in during the afternoon and it was very cold, 13 degrees. None of us had expected this type of weather but we survived. Following this visit we hopped back on our coach and were driven to a huge performing Arts venue. We went to a traditional restaurant for a Chinese “Hot pot” lunch. We were given a pot of broth and then could choose different herbs, spices small vegies to add to the pot. The pots were placed into a circular hot-plate recessed into the table. A plater of thinly sliced meats was brought out along with some seafood and vegetables. We were able to add these to our hot-pots and cook our meals at our table. It was very a satisfying and delicious meal. After lunch, we walked to the performing arts venue. Here we saw a most spectacular musical dramatic performance called “The Golden Mask Dynasty”. The play/musical was based around the story of a beautiful mask Queen who built a wonderful kingdom. It included a war and romance. The costumes were stunning as was the acrobatic displays, ballet, dancing and trampolining.  The sets were just as amazing and towards the end of the performance there was a full waterfall rushing around us and on the stage! We returned to our hotel after this and had an early night after a fantastic day.