Tim's travels: This way Mum...

Timmy's Tours is now open for business! My mum arrived safely in Beijing on Sunday and I met her at the airport. Her dreams of first class treatment were snuffed from the get-go when I herded her onto the local airport shuttle and she discovered we were the only foreigners. But mum soon agreed that it was a much cheaper (and actually faster!) alternative to the taxis tourists always use.

We spent our first day at the Silk Street market getting all our shopping out of the way. Monday was still a public holiday so I figured the sights would be chaos anyway. We spent the entire day bargaining for everything from golf shirts to Mao alarm clocks. We also stopped at my local tailor to have some clothes made. I had been recommending the place to so many travellers that the owner gave me a whole tailored suit for free! We took the plunge that night and went to experience Beijing Opera. Well, "experience" is the right word. Its pretty interesting visually, but the singing sounds like a cat being thrown into a swimming pool...

Tuesday morning found us bounding our way to the Great Wall at Jinshanling. I convinced mum the long trip out there was worth it and she has to agree... she got a section of wall all to herself. The area was noticeably different from a month ago with greenery dominating where there was once only brown. The hike was harder than I remembered (obviously a side-effect of all the cheap beer over the last month!), but I think mum really enjoyed it. And we earned our Beijing Duck supper in the process.

Mum starts her Great Wall adventure...

Our whirlwind tour continued on Wednesday with an early morning stop at the local fruit and veg market that I recently discovered hidden in the hutong. Its really gorgeous. From there we made our way out to the Summer Palace, via the foreigners police to collect my new extended visa. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed a lovely stroll around the grounds at the palace.

Some funky photography at our local market. He doesn't like his greens it seems...

Today was seriously busy. We again started out at the fruit market to see what the locals get up to in the mornings, and then wound our way through the hutongs to Tiananmen square, and on into the Imperial Palace. The Forbidden City, as its better known, is huge. We were lucky to get there ahead of the crowds so had a pretty clear run of the place and were thus able to see most of it in a morning. It really is very beautiful and impressive. We had to rush a little as we had a flight this afternoon to Xi'An where we are now. Tomorrow we're off to see the Terracotta Warriors!