8th June Wishful thinking did not get us a Blue Sky Day. Another day of grey/brown haze. We have not seen the sun since landing in Beijing. Not to worry as we will make the most of our time here enjoyable. Today we walk to see the forbidden Palace, about a 30 minute walk. There are so many people here, and then i realise its Saturday. Maybe it would not be as crowded during a week day. Little disappointed. There are so many tour guides yelling through their lou...

After a great nights sleep we get ready to visit the Great wall at Mutianyu. Its about a 2 hour drive form the city. We have booked a local guide by the name of Kevin to take us to see the wall. He is charging me $90 for the transport in a mini bus, a driver and Kevin the tour guide. The weather is not kind to us, as it is raining with thick fog. We leave the city and after an hour or so we actually start to see clouds as we leave the pollution behind. It rains...

Departing from Shanghai we gave ourselves 2 hours before departure to check in and proceed to the boarding gate. Well check in was pretty smooth only taking 5 minutes. The next step was security. This took 20 minutes and was done with any problems. After leaving security we headed to gate number 91 of 200 gates. It was a long walk, 750 metres. This airport is huge to say the least. the terminal would have to be around 1.5 ks long. As we arrive at the gate they ...