A week in Beijing

There is nothing quite as thrilling as travel! In August 2014, David, Victoria and I had the amazing opportunity of attending a book fair in Beijing with David’s publisher. There is so much to see and we only had a week. I hope you enjoy these snaps of The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace and The Great Wall.

David has written several children’s books on Chinese folklore and one adult novella called Dragon of Heaven, about the Dowager Empress Cixi. Being able to visit the places he had researched for the book was a total thrill. It seemed very surreal.

A unique cultural experience was the interest the local Chinese people had in Victoria, who was 15 at the time. We had been informed that this would happen. She would be approached by strangers asking if they could take her picture. We were prepared for this but we were overwhelmed at how often it happened. It was like touring Beijing with a movie star. Everywhere we went, photographs with Victoria were in high demand!

We packed quite a lot into our 7 days. You can see the air quality was not good some days but I think we were very lucky and had perfect weather. If I have a takeaway from our short trip, it is, as in India, the people that make it. We came upon such friendly and happy people.

Until next time Beijing, xièxie!