Beijing Disneyland, home to Hong Kong

Our mornings typically started with a huge slap up breakfast at the Hotel. Quality. Mountains of Fruit, Full English and everything in between...Its going to be hard to go back to a small breakfast...4 platefuls washed down with litres of tea and juice have been the norm for the week! We would also digest the always entertaining China Daily, the officially sanctioned English newspaper. Chortling at some journalistic angles whislt munching on the odd hashbrown.

The main activity of the last day of our tour of Beijing Disneyland was to wander over to Tiananmen Square, some 20mins away, and line up to see the preserved remains of Chairman Mao. Being a Saturday, the crowds were well out in force, this combined with the gorgeous 22C still air and clear skies, made for mammouth queuing. I think about 800m long, 5 people across, and including some old school revolutionary cadres pushing in!!

Mainly middle age to seniors lined up, all abiding to the no cameras, no handbags, no guns, no knives "of a dangerous variety" and no water bottles. I of course chose to ignore this, and continued to wait for the cloak rooms with my camera, which never eventuated. Unceremoniously ejected from the queue at the security checkpoint, the guards, all three of them pointing to Tiananmen Square and jibbering to me....hmmm. My reply to them is not publishable.

All in All it was a great week relaxing, away from work, in a lovely hotel in the heart of the Middle Kingdom. We got to experience pre- Olympic Beijing, see the sights and get a feel for a place which is moving very quickly towards a HK model of development.

Not sure I will be back anytime soon, but was glad I made the visit.