On our way from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing we witnessed one of the strangest things we have ever seen! Apparently the Chinese railroads are a different size to those in Russia and Mongolia so believe it or not, all the wheels on our train had to be changed! This process seems to be known as 'the changing of the bogies'! This was done by lifting all of the carriages about 6 feet in the air using hydrolic equipment not too dissimilar to what you would find in a car garage, and then a new set of wheels were rolled under the carriages once the old ones were off! Very cool!

We arrived in Beijing on the 26th March and stayed for 6 days, our longest stop so far, though I would say we definitely needed that long as there was so much to see and do there!

Beijing was far more modern and sophisticated than I had expected it to be, largely as a result of the changes to the city to accommodate the Olympic Games 2 years ago. We therefore found it a friendly, welcoming and exciting City with a public transport system second to none.

During our stay here, we visited the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Beijing Zoo, Jingshuan Park, the Summer Palace, the Olympic Village and Tiananmen Square. We also saw a Chinese Acrobat Performance and a Kung Fu show. All of these I would definitely recommend to anyone visiting Beijing, apart from the Zoo, which was a bit of a disappointment. However, the performances were amazing and the traditional sights noted above are absolutely breath-taking.

Also worth a visit are the silk and pearl markets, simply for the experience of haggling and heckling! A pro-haggler could walk off with great bargains! The night food markets are also a great experience with culinary delights such as scorpions, starfish and sheep's penis amongst the delicacies being sold here!

We stayed at the Jade Youth Hostel and it was lovely with lots of facilities which were useful such as a travel-booking service for tours or onwards travel and laundry facilities. The staff are all English speaking and extremely friendly.

One of the highlights of the trip, however, was the Great Wall of China trek which we were lucky enough to do on a beautiful, clear day. We trekked 10k along the sections from Jinshanling to Simatai which is the most original part of the wall and a tough trek but totally worth it. At the end there was the option to walk 45 mins to the car park or zip wire over the reservoir to it so we chose the latter and had a blast!

I would also recommend putting an early morning into your itinerary to go to one of the parks and see the locals exercising before work. It was a truly once in a lifetime experience!

Overall, we loved Beijing and felt we could've happily spent a lot longer there!