Ni hao from beijing! I am currently sitting in the internet room of the hostel we are staying in, but it is more like a hotel than hostel!i have atually been in Beijing for about 3 days so will use this blog to update you on my trip so far..

12/3 - this was the day i flew to Beijing, not the most interesting part of my trip but i thought i would fill you all in anyway. flight was delayed by about 2 and half hours but wasnt a big problem. had a very boring nine hour flight, but did get to wach juno and enchanted!! was a bit annoyed that they made us walk through first and business class before we got to our seats :(

13/3 - arrived in Beijing at abour 9, 2 hours later than planned, but luckily my airport transfer was still there! New Beijing airport terminal was stunning btw! it was about 40 mins drive from the airport, it was quite an awkward drive as the driver didnt speak a word of English and drove like a manaic! though everyone does! arrived at my hotel about 12 and just explored for the rest of the day.

14/3 - met my roommate in the morning, Ewan, then went for a walk down to tianmen square and the forbidden city, just to explore. in the evening i met the rest of my tour group, all really nice people, and we all had dinner together, the food was amazing and so cheap!

15/3 - some of us from the group went out to the summer palace, it was a bit of a trek to get there, and we had to use the metro and two buses, took us about 2 hours but was definately worth it! the weather was amazing and the summer palace was stunning, hopefully i have some good photos! after a lot of walking in the sun we headed back to the hostel and went to see a kung-fu show in the evening, which was fun :)

16/3 - we went to tianmen square and the forbidden city, for a guided tour. learnt lots of interesting facts about both :P apparently there used to be a starbucks in the forbidden city, which isnt surprising as they are everywhere here, so are kfc's btw!

17/3 - left very early in the morn to head out for the great wall, weather was glorious again, very hot! we trekked along the wall for about 3-4 hours, very hard work but the views were awesome! we were trekking along an unrestored part of the wall and we didnt see any other people for the entire walk! we went from the wall to a nearby guest house, from there we trekked again up a diff part of the wall to see the sunset. it was too cloudy to see anything but we still had fun playin games on one of the highest parts of the wall!

18/3 - we headed back to beijing in the mornin and i went to the silk market to find some bargains, its totally overwhelming as people physically drag you into their shops, but the bargaining is fun, apparently you should aim to pay one tenth of the price they start with! then we left for the station and got on our first sleeper train of the trip. it was quite comfy and the rocking of the train seems to make it really easy to sleep!