I joined my first group tour in Beijing - there are twelve of us plus a trip leader and we'll be together for the next 20 days as we make our way around China to Hong Kong. It's a fun bunch of people, aged 19 to 35 - Jill and Neil from from Limavady, Catherine and Tom from Cork, Vicky and Dave from Liverpool, Mel and Brad from New Zealand (but living in London), Sara and Tim from Australia, Emily from America and our trip leader, Bobo, who's from a village about 3 hours away from Beijing. On our first evening we had a great meal together as we got to know one another and sharpened up our chopstick skills.

On our first full day we took a trip to the Great Wall of China and walked along the top of the wall for 4-5 hours from Jinshaling to Simitai. It was hot hot hot and Bobo kept reminding us to keep a "low pace", which wasn't difficult as we were stopping about every thirty seconds to take photos of the incredible views. It's hard to believe that it is over 2,000 years old (though sections of it have been restored). Some sections of the wall were very steep and pretty tough going but it was worth every second of it. At the end of the trek we took a zip wire down over the river, which was great fun.

In the evening we went for dinner in Beijing's trendy Hou Hai district, where there are lots of bars and restaurants surrounding a lake. I had the local speciality - Peking duck, yummy. We carried on to a bar hidden deep withing the hutongs (narrow alleyways between the traditional style houses).

I had a temple-tastic day in Beijing, visiting the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Temple, a Confucian Temple and the glorious Temple of Heaven Park, which was a beautiful place to chill out in the 30+oC heat of the afternoon. In the evening we went to a Flying Acrobats show, which had some great music and lasers accompanying the impressive acrobatics.

On our final day we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, where China's emperors used to live with their wives and concubines (thousands of them!) and their eunuch servants (because the emperor was the only man allowed inside the Forbidden City). Our local guide, Vivianne, explained all the history and told us stories along the way.

Throughout the world Tiananmen Square is synonymous with the massacre of student protestors there by the Chinese army in 1989. However, due to the shocking way in which the Chinese government filters and restricts news and information, apparently many local people are not even aware that this happened and only know what they've been told by foreigners.

Chairman Mao's mausoleum in Tiananmen Square is surrounded by some classic communist statues. It was closed while we were there so I didn't see inside. I found it interesting and surprising that many Chinese people still considered Mao to be their 'great leader'.

Later we visited a centre of the Hui Lin charity, which trains and assists mentally handicapped people in the local area and is supported by the company that I'm travelling with. It was a fun afternoon - the trainees made us soup and dumplings for lunch then put on performances of singing, dancing, playing instruments and acted out a funny little bullfighting story. Later they taught us some Chinese calligraphy and we all had a go at drawing some words and phrases. We also played some games with them - kicking around a hacky sack and whatnot.

Before we set off for the train, I went for a Chinese massage, which was intermittently excruciating and relaxing - it's all about pressure points so they push really hard on specific points and it took all my willpower not to scream! I also quickly visited the Pearl Market and haggled for some cheap t-shirts and a memory card for my camera.

It took a while to adjust to being in a group after a month of travelling on my own but it's great to have people to chat to and share stories with - there's a mix of people from lots of different backgrounds with different reasons for travelling and different plans so it's pretty interesting. Plus we've had some fantastic group meals, where Bobo orders stacks of dishes and everyone helps themselves so we can try lots of different food. Due to the recent earthquake in the Sichuan region of China, our planned route had to be changed so instead of going to Chengdu I'm going back to Shanghai...