Travel Day

Travel days are always a bit frantic for both Tour Managers and clients and today was no exception. We started the day with a short excursion in rickshaws to visit a Chinese family in their house in the oldest district (or Hutong) in Beijing. The family have lived in their house there for many decades and grandfather (who is 101 years old!) has refused all offers from property developers to purchase his house even though the value is over £1 million. Good for him! It’s his family home and he wants to stay there. We walked back to our bus through the old area and park, watch the old man playing mah Jong and The senior citizens doing their dancing practice in the open air

After that we visited the temple of heaven, and then boarded the high-speed bullet train for Xi’an, travelling at an average speed of about 300 km/h. I have to admit that this part of the day was something of a blur since the process of boarding 43 people and their bags on the train, passing through security, passport checks and waiting lounges is a rather intensive one. So no train photos today I’m afraid, but I’ll make sure to get some on our next train journey. We are all installed in our hotel now and many are having an early night since tomorrow we visit the terracotta warriors.