I had not expected to visit China so soon. I spent some time there as a baby, and, like other people with "homelands", you tend to make a big deal out of going back. It should be a moving experience, which it was for me. At first it wasn't, noticing the rapid growth of the country and the people left behind. But by the end of the week, I enjoyed watching the red-cheeked people move about. To me, there was a sense of opportunity and change.

It was an exciting time to visit China. I was taking a course on Modern Chinese History in Copenhagen at the time, plus China was having its promotional "visit China" year, hence the cheap tickets. Deng Xiao Peng died the following week. I went with my mother and grandfather, and, as Mari later remarked, it was amazing to have three generations traveling together. It meant different things to all three of us.

This photo is of "The Temple of Heaven" within the Forbidden City. This is where the emperor used to come pray, and it is an astounding place. One thing I noticed was the use of empty space in Chinese architecture and this is a good example. The temple reaches out from its surroundings, as if pointing at heaven.

It is a wall and it is indeed great, running some 5,000 kilometres and is allegedly the only man made structure they can see from space. The wall is not, however, continuous. Some parts are very narrow and others are in ruin. But the spots open for tourists are incredible. This part of the wall is a hour or so north of Beijing.

This area had to be reached by cable car, and as it was late in the afternoon, not many people were there. Which was great for us. It was a rather sublime moment for me, for the lack of a better term. The vastness of the mountains, the sense of history of the stones, and that quality of a sun setting, made the experience a spiritual one.