Tuesday 22 September. We want to leave early so we can see as much as possible! We share our last block of noodles for breakfast. We leave by about 8:30 and head to the square. We end up going to the forbidden city instead. But man what a rigmarole! We only have card, so Malcolm stands in one line to be told wrong line. Then next line to be told no card! The 2 ATM we find don't take our card. Finally we try a different card and get some cash. New line and tick...

Monday 21 September The bed is very hard! My arm goes numb regularly in the night. We take our time getting ready and deciding what to do. We decide on the zoo. The most annoying thing about the subway is all the transfers. It takes ages to transfer from one to the next. Eventually we get there and get tickets into the zoo. We find an English map and head directly to the pandas. Initially the first panda is asleep but he ends up being quite the show animal walki...

Sunday 20 September I wake way too early when I wanted to sleep in. There is a movie on called click. About a magical remote that allows you to mute, fast forward, volume up/down etc. The guy ends up missing most of his life and it gets to where he can fix it coz the remote goes on auto from learned behaviours. The importance of now. The good and the bad. Our friends message and tell us we can leave our bags in their room. We pack up and head to their floor. We...

Saturday 19 September We have to be ready by 6:30 to leave for the Great Wall. I wake around five kind of anxious but fall asleep again once I realise the time. The trip by private bus takes about 2 hours. It's lovely scenery and there isn't much traffic. We take a shuttle to the base, receive a brief history of the wall and then have options of walking up or taking a cable car. We walk. It's lots of stairs and I'm slow. The last in our group to the top. The v...

Friday 18 September I wake early and can't go back to sleep on the hard benches. I watch some shows on the tablet to pass the time till it's more reasonable to get up. We are in china! There are a lot of tunnels we go through. Breakfast is fine, but I discover my oiled feta and olives are not seal proof and there is a messy oil mess to clean. The scenery is lovely and hilly. Green. We arrive at Beijing station a little early and get a group picture once off. It...