Well, this is it. My last entry ever! I'm going to miss my journal, I've had great fun writing it. Although I can't miss it too much, as my Dad has printed it all out for me and put it into a big book so I'll always have the memories! We arrived home on Sunday afternoon after a 10 hour flight from Beijing. I can't say there were too many tears leaving China - sad as we were for the end of our trip it was nice to escape the clouds! The flight was boring ...

Well, we've reached the end of our time in Beijing! And I have to say it has been an experience..... We've lined up with the Chinese tourists to take our picture under the portrait of Mao. We've had little children laugh at the sight of us in the street. We've had complete strangers come up and ask to take a picture of us (while others just snap away!). We've been nigh on kidnapped by crazy vendors in markets. We've been nearly run over by at least 8.5 mill...

Sadly, the Great Wall was a wash-out. Or, more appropriately I suppose, a white-out! All the bad weather that's been plaguing us these last few days really crashed home today - the clouds descended upon Beijing so badly that by the time we arrived at the Great Wall, we could barely see 10 feet in front of us, let alone watch it trail off into the distance...... Having chosen the section at Badaling because this is apparently "the" place to see the Great Wall ro...

Well, today was definitely a better day weather-wise - it didn't rain once!! At one point we could definitely feel the sun through the mountains of clouds, and it was definitely warmer, even if that did make it a little clammy! Fingers crossed for another improvement tomorrow, as we're off to the Great Wall all day so it would be nice to have a little sunshine!! Today we finally made it to the Forbidden City - we decided we would just have to go whatever t...

Well, we made it to China! We had no problems with the tickets, but we did have a 2 hour delay at Hong Kong while we waited for permission to enter Chinese airspace....a great start! We managed to bypass the con artists trying to charge us 400 yuan for a taxi to the city and find one for just 85....even if he did have to phone the hostel first to find out where it was! Our accommodation is really nice - we booked on the internet so are only paying about half t...