This will be a LONG day today. Our flight doesn’t leave until 01:10 so we need a few things to occupy the time. Left the bags and backpacks at the hotel after another excellent breakfast (I shall miss those egg tarts!). Another perfect day. The meeting point for our MU Bus guide involved a subway transfer over to the Lama Temple line. It was a small group with just 5 people … a couple from Brazil, young fellow from New Zealand, and us. Leo (our guide) is a character – accent more Cantonese than Mandarin … he’d lived in London for over a decade and was originally an IT specialist…

Off to explore on our own … venturing forth into the massive subway system … purported to be the largest in the world. At the bottom of the stairs, on a raised platform in the corner, two immaculately-dressed national guards, as rigid and unmoving as waxwork figures … eyeing every square centimeter before them. Oh, how my fingers itched to take a photo … but it’d probably be the last time anyone saw me. At every entrance one has to place all bags, back packs, pouches, hats, water bottles through a scanner …. once I forgot one of our small water bottles, and that had to be carefully weighed to…

Now THIS is the way to start the day — all hotel breakfasts should be like this. Besides a whole rank of beverages, yoghurt and toast, there was a delicious assortment of dumplings, bao buns, hard boiled eggs, stir fried veggies, two soups, little strips of crisply fried meat, light-as-air long donuts, and a plate of all important egg tarts. Creamy, melt-in-the-mouth and flaky … quite possibly the BEST ever. Mum would have been in her element. A brisk walk back to the station to meet up with our tour group. Not your usual 30-strong, trudging, worn-out bunch … this was the MU Bus organization.. They drive you to the…