China - Beijing

The bus into Beijing was smart and air-conditioned, but from inside you could see how polluted the city was. Can they really be hosting an Olympic games here in a little over a month?

I take in the tourist sites of Beijing, starting with the Forbidden City. I'd heard they'd built a Starbucks in the outer coutryard, but must have since removed it - thank God!

As you'd imagine, for an attraction this big and well-known, it was packed with tourists - for the most part Chinese - and taking photos with no-one else in was challenging. Once again, much of what I saw was either renovated or being renovated, but it was still very impressive.

From the Forbidden City it's just a stroll across the road to Tian'an Men Square, alledgedly the biggest of it's kind in the world. With Mao's Mausoleum at one end, and surrounded by communist-style buildings, I didn't spend much time there...

In the afternoon I went to the Qing summer palace, which was beautiful, but it poured with rain.

The next day I took a taxi to see the architecturally incredible Olympic (Bird's Nest) stadium. What a piece of work!

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