Just another sunny summer day in Baoding. The milkman was doing his rounds in the morning, blowing his whistle, the girl selling the filled sandwich wraps is smiling at me, the old people in the Zhuguang compaund are walking around patrolling the area and stopping for an occasional chat in the shade beneath the trees and the donkeys still look like they couldn't care less about what's going on around them as they stand chewing their watermelons in the street.

But for me it's the last day in Baoding for now, I'm trying to clean up the flat, say some final goodbyes and figure out what an earth I'm going to do with all my stuff. And in the afternoon it's off to Beijing with Griselle, where we are finally planning on checking out the summer palace. I suppose it's kind of appropriate that we are doing it in the summer...

It's a funny thing how leaving Baoding doesn't really feel like the end of anything, usually when I move on, leave a city or country for the next, there is always a feeling of ending something and starting something new. Now it's just like taking another train and continuing on my road.