Last day in Beijing Friday 15 May

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Last day in Beijing Friday 15 May

Beijing – Yichang

Before we caught the late afternoon flight to YiChang, to join the Yangtze River cruise we visited the Bold Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas. There has been a 2^nd zoo built further away from the centre of the city because the old zoo was now too small. However, they have left many of the pandas. We saw 7 of them. Some of them were funny to watch. There was one who was sitting on his bottom, basking in the sun with his nose pointing to the sky, occasionally looking down at us. This was another highlight of our tour, particularly as there aren’t many pandas left in the world.



We then drove to the Old Summer Palace which included a 780m long covered archway which had 1000s of different painting on it. There was also a man-made lake which was massive (that word again!). We floated across the lake in a boat which was very pleasant. We saw many pagodas. The Qing built both the Summer Palace and Old Summer Palace. These served as summer retreats for the emperors and their entourages.

That night we had a western-style dinner. The next day we were leaving Beijing for the Yangtze River cruise.

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