February 23

   There is an exact replica of The Great Wall. they used 8 and a half million miniature bricks to build it! An incredible piece of work. We saw so many lovely things today, so I'll describe just a few. My favourite part I think was the Stone Forest, which is a natural phenomenon where millions of years ago the limestone was formed, then 3 million years ago was pushed to the surface and now forms weird stone sculptures that cover over 300 acres in China. 

   The Mogao, Yungang, Longmen, and Leshan Grottos are pretty spectacular too, about a fifth of the size of the originals, they are huge and all have such serene faces.

   The miniature buildings we saw were beautifully constructed too, obviously a lot of painstaking work has been put into the whole of Splendid China, and it was a shame to see that in places it's becoming quite dilapidated, there were not that many people there, so maybe all the Disney's give it too much competition.

   Amongst the best we saw were buildings such as Cliffside tombs, Nine Dragon Wall, Mausoleum of Gengis Khan, Xaing Fei's Tomb, 3 Ancient Pagoda's, Dai Village, Potala Palace, Temple of Confucius, The Imperial Palace \ Forbidden City, The Terra Cotta Warriors, Shaolin Temple, the Temple of Heaven, and Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum. All were really beautifully made and were from a third to a sixteenth scale depending on the original size.

   The Guanyin Buddha Statue [1000 eyes to see the peoples suffering and 1000 arms to ease them] was another favourite of mine. He was a disciple of Buddha and has such a tranquil and gentle face.

   I think Andrew's favourite  were the Terra Cotta Warriors, there were hundreds of them and in such incredible detail.

   Part of the ticket deal was that you have entry to the 90 minute show at 6pm "The Mysterious Kingdom of the Orient" it was quite good over all and very good in places, singing was not our thing, but the acrobats were good. Afterwards you get a buffet dinner which was edible, sort of Chinese Macdonalds style. So now we are by the pool drinking wine - so what's new eh?