My dear friends!

For the first time in almost 5 weeks, I really don't know where to start... we had a fantastic weekend, and before that weekend an amazing OP race at Wuyuan Bay. Friday afternoon after the race, we took off for a few days Beijing, let's say a weekend. We've never seen a city so big like this, I mean, Xiamen is big (very little city in China), Shanghai was huge, but Beijing was really crazy. It's like you say: "Let's visit the Flanders in Belgium" - you really don't know where to start..

Anyway, our Beijing-trip started with a very nice flight through the chinese sky - wonderfull. We were so excited to see the capital city, but once we arrived the smog was welcoming us! We were very tired, so we ate a pizza and jumped in our Beijing beds...
Saturday morning (after a delicious Starbucks-coffee) we welcomed the Shanghai team in our hotel. They organised a guided tour among the Chinese Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, and some Beijing factories. I really can't say in a few words what we saw... so I hope these pictures can tell you something about our experiences...

After we ate THE Beijing roasted duck, we took a TJOEK TJOEK with shaking weels and a laughing driver to a neighbourhood in the city, filled with bars and clubs around a lake. We had some lovely Mojito's and Caiperinas, untill our eyes became very heavy...
Sunday, we had a large program to fill the day. We crossed several streets and squares, untill we finally saw the Tian' Men Square and the 'Forbidden City' - never seen a palace so big. Everything in Beijing is in superlatives, you don't see anything small - everything is huge!

After visiting the Forbidden City (it was like crossing Antwerp in a very short time), we made a nice trip by feet to the temple of heaven. Unexpected, we saw a lot of poverty and strange situations, very typical in a chinese way...



It's so difficult to give an impression from this huge and spectacular city, because we saw so much on a really short time, our minds are very tired now - so we take a good sleep now!

As soon as possible we will drop a story on the blog about our last kids! This is the last week in Xiamen for the Xiamen girl power team... off we go!

kisses,

The Xiamen girl power team