We had planned to spend today visiting the Mao Mausoleum and Forbidden City. In true Chinese fashion the Forbidden City is heavily being refurbished - has anyone told them it's peak season. After the Forbidden City we rode around looking for nothing in particular and stumbled across two great parks.

Zhong Shan park right near the Forbidden City is a park in honour of Sun Yat Sen and is a real delight. The cost is 3RMB and it's clean and well kept and nice and shady.

From here we headed to the White Pagoda and Bei Shan Park. Another cheap entry of 10RMB saw us in somewhere a little similiar to Summer Palace. There's a lake and hill to climb with the White Pagoda at the top. Trev and I climbed up and wandered through more temples, through a coin in a wishing well and rang a bell in the Bell tower. From the peak you had awesome views of the whole of Beijing.