Our adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....

Today we set off to visit the Great Wall, but on the way we were taken to a Jade factory. The workmanship by the people responsibles for the carving was quite something to see, as apparently every piece is carved from a single piece of stone. Just as with all these sort of stops the shop is the main attraction for many. Not really for Joan and I this sort of thing but her travel bear enjoyed his visit, this guy gets taken everywhere and tries not to miss a photo opportunity.

After the shop visit we finally set off for the wall. Here the the Cyprus group managed to climb up a reasonable length of the wall, but it is steep in places and in the heat of the midday sun, quite an effort. hotos/2007/06/28.htm">China's Great Wall is really something to see and it just goes on and on in every direction and is a tremendous feat of building, especially when you consider just how many years ago it was started. All around this tourist area there are traders trying to prise money out of you for everything that is either real or copied, even the coffee was £2.50 for a cup, but this was real.

At lunchtime we stopped at what is known locally as a Friendship shop. Think John's reaction was not another jade shop!. At this stop we found another demonstration of the local skills, this time some beautiful vases. Have to admit that some of this stuff was quite lovely to see, made of a copper vase decorate in superb colours and designs and then fired to glaze the enamel. Joan and I were almost tempted by one of the vases, but just not quite tempted enough.

On our way back to Beijing, we pased by the new Olympic stadium which I guess we are all going to see lots of next year. It just looks like a huge bird's nest. The Chinese are very proud of the fact that they are to host the 2008 Olympics and this is to see in the whole city. The cleanliness and general order is something for them to be very proud of. Before going to a special Peking duck dinner this evening we had an opportunity to attend a show. Kung Fu has been translated in to a tremendous dance show and we were very glad to have got the opprtunity to see this. I mangaed to sneek this one picture, without flash, before I was spotted and asked to put the camera away.