We set off from the hostel to Wangfujing street to see the welcoming of the customers ceremony outside department stores. We arrived at 9.45am as the stores open at 10am. There were quite a few others waiting outside but the ceremony didn't happen, they just opened the doors and everyone walked in. We had decided to try to do some shopping today so to get our exercise in, we walked around 4km to Silk Street. Silk street is not a street but a 5 floor shopping centre full of little stalls selling rip of clothing ranging from Sportswear to Designer outfits. Catriona's first foray into buying was to try to buy a singlet top. The seller wanted 280 RMB that is $48 AUD, we laughed at her and said it was only a singlet. We counter offered 25 ($5) and she offered a price not much less than her original offer. I don't know if people actually pay the exorbitant prices but we certainly do not. Anyway after much back and forth we ended up walking away and only after we did that did she accept our offer. Catriona was over it by then and didn't end up buying it. She did however buy some shorts and a top from two other places.
We were over the haggling by then and after lunch in a restaurant across the road we set off to see the CCTV building. It was built for the Olympics and covers an area of 197,000 square metres. 
We then set off on the subway to Olympic park. We made two line changes to get there and everything ran very smoothly. We alighted at the Olympic sports centre station. The boulevard we walked down reminded us of Sydney Olympic park but bigger. David took our photo with the birds nest in the back ground while we were quite far away. It is a huge stadium!
We bought tickets to enter the stadium and found that there was entertainment inside. We sat down on some seats and watched a tightrope walker cross from one side of the stadium to the other overhead.
We found that we were able to get down onto the track if we registered for a fitness test, so we hired some sports shoes and Catriona changed into the clothes she had bought at silk street and we set off to the track. David misplaces his scorecard so did not take part in any of the fitness tests which were the number of situps in one minute, height, weight, reach test (was not working), how long you can stand on one leg with eyes closed, lung capacity, number of push ups and grip strength. David had a run on the track then Catriona started the tests. Catriona has grown 1.2cm since leaving home as she is now 166.2 cm tall, maybe that is where the extra weight has come from as she is 2kg over her usual wieght. :-) She excelled at standing on one leg with eyes closed coming in at 71.7 seconds, but had a dismal pushup record of 3!!! Anyway we were following a few other guys around the tests and David was itching to have a race so the 4 of them had a race down the back straight, David won against these 20 somethings and felt quite happy.
David then had a go doing the triple jump, (you can check out the video on our flickr site if interested) and we set off to the Water Cube (national aquatic centre) but we could not go in as it is closed for renovations. As we were heading to the train station we bumped into John and Jude from our Trans-Siberian trip. We could not be leive we bumped into them!! We caught a couple of crowded trains back to central Beijing and walked back to the hostel.
11th We set off for the Summer Palace Gardens today. We decided to catch the Metro as it seemed the quickest most efficient way to get there. We bought a through ticket which entitled us to visit Suzhon Street, Tower of Buddhist Incence, the garden of virtue and harmony and the Wenchang gallery. Our first stop was Suzhon street, a riverside walk of shops and eateries where we had an early lunch of noodles. It is a very pretty spot.
We headed up the mountain passing Buddhist Tenants hall and then on up to the Sea of wisdom temple. This had effigies of Buddha with many of their heads removed by the Anglo-French forces during the opium wars (1856-60).
We then looked inside the Buddhist fragrance pavilion 
and then down to the cloud dispelling hall, a favourite of Dowager Empress Cixi, linked by very colourful walkways.
We found this side of the hill very crowded with tour groups. We walked around to the Marble boat along a long wooden painted corridor.
We then caught a dragon ferry over to the other side of the lake and crossed the 17 arched bridge to the South Island where we visited the Dragon King Temple which Emperoe Qianlong renamed The Temple of Timely Rains and Extensive Moisture. We thought this name was quite funny. We headed back around the lake visiting the Wengchan Gallery, which contained many types of artifacts from the different dynasties including Ming and Qing dynasty vases. We caught the very efficient subway back to do some shopping at Sunlitun Clothing markets. We found a shopping centre and both of us bought some quick drying clothes at Uni Qlo (Sporting clothes, good for travelling and yoga). Catriona managed to buy a couple of business shirts at the markets before we set off back to the hostel. Another huge day, around 7km walk just on the way home from the markets, stopping off at a little restaurant along the way where they had pictures we could point at to order the meal.
We also got to see all the buildings lit up for the evening, which was a great spectacle.
We had a good nights sleep and were ready for a big days sight seeing. We planned to ride a bike but because of the pollution we decided to walk and catch the subway. Our first stop was to be the Beijing underground city. We walked about 2km through little dirty backstreets. We finally found where the entrance was only to read a sign saying the Beijing underground city was closed permanently. We decided to head to Dashilar Hutong. The lonely planet said "It's a great jumble of silk shops, old stores, theatres, herbal medicine shops, and food and clothing specialists, although much was under wraps for possible development prior to the Olympics.". We walked through hutongs where many of the buildings were half demolished.
We finally made our way out to where Dashilar Hutong should have been only to find a half completed building project. We were close to Qianmen station so we caught the subway back to the stop near where we bought our clothes the day before. Catriona bought a few more tops and we then caught the subway back to Wufanjing street where we did some more shopping. We had dinner at the little local restaurant we had eaten in a few times. We gave the little girl a koala which she played with the whole time we were there. After dinner we headed down to Tianenmen square to see it under lights. It was good to see it at night. After we were nice and safe back at the hostel there was a huge thunderstorm.
13th Checkout day at the hostel. We had another easy day today, checking out of the hostel and back into harmony hotel. We were luck that they had a room ready for us when we arrived at the hotel. Once we checked in to our room we got all our things together we planned to send home and walked around the corner to the central post office to send it all home. The lady behind the counter was very efficient and we managed to send our parcel with a minimum of fuss. She didn't want us to send two empty beer bottles in the same package but we managed to convince her that if they were wrapped up in David's jumper and a shirt they would be fine. We ended up sending just short of 10kg back and we now have much more room in our bags.
In the evening we had our group meeting for our tour and then had a group dinner. There are nine of us on the tour and David is the only male. We have one girl ( Anu) from Helsinki- Finland, Lisa from Wellington- New Zealand and the rest of us are from Australia. Annie and Pam from the Sunshine Coast- Queensland, Olivia from Melbourne, Steph from country Victoria and Jess from Wingham. Our tour leader is Yisha and she is from Xianyang. She said it was a small city and once a Capital of China. I looked up the lonely planet and her small city is home to 1,034,100 people and was the capital during the Qin dynasty over 2000 years ago.
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