What a day!!

We went (by car .... Sha's driving is excellent until the need to park :P or on hill starts) to Beihai park ... "one of the oldest, largest and best-preserved ancient imperial gardens in China with a history of about 1000 years". The Chinese are very proud of their emperors. Apparently Beihei Park started under the reign of Emperor Huitong, Emperor Dading continued to building it, even Kublai Khan took part!!

It's beautiful. We walked in at the South gate (as opposed to the 'Zast gate' which I think should be 'East') and had a stunning view of the lotus flowers, lake and temples. I convinced Sha that if we rented a boat it wouldn't sink and so we went out in a pedal boat, with me being the engine and Sha dangling her feet in the water. That was fun!

We went around the lake for an hour before going for a walk on the rocks. This led us to the temple were "the emperors' queens and concubines offer sacrifice to the God of Silkworm". We also watched a man writing out a poem on the pavement using a paintbrush and water. Then we walked up lots and lots of stairs to get to the main temple. The temple was impressive. There were lots of buildings containing various Buddhist gods (including some that looked exactly like Hindu gods - has anyone heard of Zongkaba?). There were also exhibits on the history of the area (although mainly in Chinese).

Then we had a really odd experience. We walked down from the temple and found a small area with a tree, some caves and a big stone with lots of inscriptions on it. We looked in the caves and found some statues. We then walked through a little passage-way and ended up in a place that was completely identical. It had the same tree, same caves, same stone with inscriptions .. it was really weird!!

After many hours in the park we drove back to the hotel and then I went around to Sha's house. This was an incredible experience. Her parents don't speak any English at all (this was the first time when I actually had to try some Chinese). They taught me how to make Jiao zi (dumplings) from scratch. It was really fun! They kept laughing at me and we had a really great conversation using hand gestures and with Sha's translation! We made lots of dumplings ... in fact we must have made about 150! I also met Sha's turtles. They sat on my hand and didn't bite! The family are really friendly, fun and generous. I was given some good Chinese tea as a gift and gave them a book of photos of Australia - they're going to come to Sydney in a few weeks for Sha's graduation ceremony.

After dinner Sha and I walked (down a highway) to the Olympic Park. We ate icecreams and just ambled around. Today we're going for a long drive out into the hills.

Ahhh ... the photos are taking ages to upload. I'll publish this post and put the rest of the pictures on the next post.