Today we had an early start and headed through the standard heavy traffic to a specially preserved section of old Beijing next to a huge lake. Middle age shops and houses in narrow streets known as a Hutong where we had great fun enjoying a rickshaw ride. On to the Summer palace of which there used to be 5 where the Emporers would spend the hotter months along with their whole family, government officials etc. Again, magnificent structures, beautiful grounds, artwork. Huge crowd of local tourists.
Lunch near the railway station and then (thankfully with Kai's help) we boarded the train for Xian where we arrived 4 hours later having covered the equivalent of Maryborough to Sydney in that time - 350kmph! Beautiful train ride but the most uncomfortable seats I've ever experienced.
On the way we passed by huge settlements with new high rise, massive freeways, new trainlines etc - the amount of development is awe-inspiring. Interestingly a number of coal and nuclear power stations along with some solar and wind. One station we stopped in we were at platform 27 and they kept on going well beyond that!
Quite late dinner tonight at a little Cafe down from our hotel - three beautiful share dishes plus rice for 45 W which is about A$ 9.
The scale of things here is beyond anything else in the world.
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