Thursday July 2 - Beijing

Our second free day in Beijing. We succesfully got two boxes of our camping stuff and some heavy winter clothes mailed off to Canada - one box was 10kg+ and the other 8kg+ for Y1054. China Post is so efficient. They wrapped it all up, and it looks in good shape for the journey. We will see how long it takes. We chose the SAL service - so not the slowest ocean going service. Then we headed to Xidan Square for breakfast and back to the hotel by bus. Went to the Internet next door, then headed out for the Embassy District to pick up our visa; found the Bank of China - the right branch this time, paid our fee; walked over to the Mongolian Embassy; learned that all other tourists had the same problems; got our visas!!!....yeah!!; made the suggestion they advise people of the correct bank to go to! To celebrate we went into the Parisian Bakery and had a cafe latte, a tea, a cream cheese danish and a cinnamon bun while listening to delicate Parisian music, and looking out at tree lined boulevards and modern high rises that could have easily been in the business centre of any city in the world!! Too civilized!! I think the cost of this was more any dinner we have had on the trip! We also took a few minutes to think of our friends John and Pauleen who have just spent 2 weeks in Paris! W arrived back at the hotel at 6 pm; went for a beer with the same group as last night and sadly said goodbye to Olivia, (off to Shanghai) and Mike and Rachel (off to England to get married on July 18). Then we went off to the Internet; called Alanna; went back to the restaurant for some dinner 2 hours later and found the group minus those we had said goodbye to, still there. Ray and I were in bed by midnight.