South Cathedral and the last few days in Beijing.

As I said in the last blog we had seen the last of the major tourist sites, and with only a couple of days of our fabulous holiday left, we concentrated on nearby places and the final bits of present shopping plus some retail therapy for us!!

I have mentioned the South Cathedral in earlier blogs, it was somehow strange to find a Catholic Cathedral in the centre of Beijing, but I am not sure why I was surprised to be honest! I love churches and Cathedrals so we had to see if a Chinese Cathedral differed greatly from English ones.

The interior of the Cathedral was just lovely, in some ways more ornate than most of our Cathedrals, with a definite Chinese touch. It was interesting to see Chinese stained glass windows, and the ornate lights were lovely to see.

Wandering around the outside of the Cathedral we saw the only cat we had come across in the whole 2 weeks of the holiday, there are lots of dogs, but a definite lack of cats! Sadly the one cat we saw had a very poorly eye, but was lovely just the same! Here was the only place we saw wisteria growing too, which did surprise me.

Beside the Cathedral was a little park, mentioned in a previous blog, the last day of our holiday there was a solitary bird in his cage hanging in a tree, singing his little heart out to the traffic. I have no idea what the bird is, but his song was beautiful. Apparently the bird owners hang their birds in the trees every morning, then they are taken in before their owners go to work, so maybe this little fellow had been left out for the day by mistake. It was lovely to hear his song anyway.

We had planned to visit the Night Market, but the evening we went to the Wanfujing shopping area we were all really tired, so we never got there. The next day we did however go to a market aimed at the Chinese rather than tourists. Tourist markets are very annoying, as the staff all pester you to buy their goods, but the Yaxiu market was totally different, the staff were much more relaxed and did not pester us much at all! These markets are all the indoor ones, on several floors, and are total Aladdin’s Caves! We finished our present shopping there, and found a wonderful Silk shop, at prices below what we would have to pay in this country. I bought enough of a heavy weight silk in 2 different colours, enough to make 1 large quilt or 2 small ones, it is beautiful fabric, when I get round to using it that is!

The little park at night.

We had one final lovely Chinese meal with my daughter in the Hotel the last night, next day it was time to leave Beijing and China. My sister in law and I were both very sad to leave. To say we had had a truly magical holiday is really an understatement, but as we know all good things have to come to an end. It was really lovely seeing my daughter after 9 months, she will be arriving back in England in 2 weeks time, which will be great. However I think it won’t be too long until she goes back to China, as she loves it so much!

Another mythical creature, spotted in a back street.

Thanks to all of you that have shared my holiday, all your comments are very much appreciated, I am glad you have enjoyed some of my photos.
A final photo, courtesy of my sister in law, and one that means a lot to me – my lovely daughter and I on the Great Wall. Happy Days indeed.