Today we woke up and made a short Excursion to the old quarter of Beijing known as the Hutong. We travelled there by tricycle rickshaw.
I always love walking through old Beijing with its courtyard houses and the morning activity as people wake up and begin the day. We noticed some rather exciting doggies out walking in their pyjamas
Best of all is the opportunity to actually visit one of the houses and see how people live hclustered around the central courtyard while Our local guide Lily tells us about life and history in the area.
Lilly is determined to buy me a donkey burger one day. She says they’re very good. There’s just something about the name which I find a little offputting.
Instead we stopped and enjoyed a sugarcoated haw on a stick. A haw is actually a Hawthorne. it was very nice, but possibly loses a little something when translated to English! Or else, depending on your point of view, it gains something.
 after all that excitement there was really only one thing to do and that was to visit the temple of heaven, As you do. It was looking as beautiful as ever. 
finally we boarded our first high-speed train of the tour from Beijing toXi’AnAt just over 300 km/h.
During the journey, as I always like to, I visited the dining car. This is always an exciting experience since Chinese snacks and food in general are not described in English on the packet. You have little or no idea of what it is you are choosing. On a previous journey I had chosen some biscuits that turned out to be roast duckl necks.  This time I played safe and had some peanuts. That’s it for now. We’re off to see the terracotta warriors tomorrow
TimOnTheTrain 