See the hot spots in Beijing

Just discovered Google Maps and their satellite pictures of Beijing.

Now you can follow our adventures by checking out the exact locations of where we were...

Start with our apartment in Embassy House. Make sure you select 'satellite' mode since street maps are not available.

Back to London

Back to London for Claire's graduation from Warwick University. Nice ceremony - just an hour - with a few good speeches. Especially the reminders to the students to remember and appreciate the sacrifices made by their parents. Exactly. On to lunch in Leamington with Claire's friend Bryony and her parents.

Great to see Rebecca and the rest of the family and catch up with friends. Weather is horrendous - major rains and flooding across the country.

Still, nice to see the sky for the first time in many weeks and to get out of the oppressive Beijing heat for a few days.

Only six months in China but already we are in price shock everywhere we go in London. And forgotten how to tip..though it's coming back fast.

Really fancied Chinese food tonight so we got a take away from Four Regions round the corner. Great lemon chicken - in Beijing they make it with a thick lemon curd sauce and it's much too sweet. Overall, though, the food lacked bite..where are those giant red chillies I'm used to?

Claire unwinds in Beijing

After months of hard revision and a gruelling set of finals at Warwick university, Claire is jetted to Beijing for some well deserved pampering from her parents.

Drinks, good food, tea ceremonies, preening and, of course, shopping were all part of a week long chill-out before returning for the farewell, end of year, ball.


Drinks at No Name Bar, Houhai Lake


Get those hands and feet in top shape

Fruit and veg shopping at the local market

Olympic hopefuls photo shoot

Tac and Lucy (our Mandarin teacher) pose with the five Fuwa's - Beijing's 2008 Olympic mascots.

Blue sky day at last

After nearly three weeks of dark, grey-black, polluted skies and steamy 35C+ temperatures we awoke on Sunday to a beautiful, blue sky, day. Determined to make the most of it, we went to Jingshan Park - a lovely park just north of the Forbidden City. In the centre of the park is a hill built with the earth that was excavated when the Forbidden City moat was dug.

The walk up the hill is well worth it and on a clear day the views across Beijing from the top are spectacular.
View south over the rooftops of the Forbidden City with the eerie bubble of the new National Concert Hall in the distance

Behai Park & lake to the west

Beijingers love their parks and open spaces and everyone was making the most of the weather. They picnic, exercise, play mah-jong and practise their ballroom dancing. But on weekends Jingshan attracts hundreds of people who gather in small groups to sing traditional Chinese ballads to the accompaniment of varied instruments. I have no idea what era the songs come from or what they represent but the pleasure the singers clearly get is contagious and we left with smiles on our faces.