Arrive in Beijing after 20 hours on a soft sleeper train, the journey wasn't too bad and went quite quickly. We spent most of it either in heated topical discussions with a few other members of our group or sleeping!

We finally got off the train at 3pm in the afternoon. Beijing was really hot and so incredibly busy...traffic was awful and felt even worse then London. We took a taxi to our hotel which again had a really central location, within walking distance of the Forbidden City. Had a well deserved shower and then went for a group dinner & orientation walk of the local area.

The following day (15th May) we took a walk to Tian'an Men Sqaure. We walked around the square which is the biggest square in the world and saw the Palace Museum of Forbidden City - an ancient palace built for the Emperors in 1413. Unfortunately Mao's Mosoleum was being renievated so we were unable to go in and view his body. Although whilst in the Palace Museum I did get approached by a Chinese man to have my? picture taken with him which was interesting! Apparently they really like Westerners...so I felt like a Z list celebrity for 5 minutes..! After walking around the Forbidden City we took a local taxi to a local 5 floor market! It was definately quite an experience with people shouting at you to buy everything at ridiculous prices. We did lots of bargaining there for jewellery & trinket boxes managing to get them down from their original asking price of 120 Yuan to 20! Bargaining becomes very addictive after a while...especially as you know you can get them down so low.

That evening we took a bus to the Red Square Theatre where we went to watch a Kung Fu show. I thought it was breathtaking! The set was brilliant and the music was really good...so good I had to buy the DVD & CD...!

May 16th -

Another early start today, we woke up and took a local bus to the Temple of Heaven where we mixed with the locals and took part in their morning activities. Played a strange kind of tennis with a local man & also joined them for early morning Tai Chi in the park. The day was glorious with wonderful sunshine. The 'Master' taught us some basic moves before we went to go and see the actual Temple. The temple its self was fantastic, completely full of grandeur just what I expected from a place designed for the Emperor to pray. The decoration was gorgeous with dark blues, reds and gold dragon designs on the walls and ceiling.

From here we took the number 60 bus to the Hutong area- which is a residential area set in narrow alleys with 4 houses set around one small courtyard sometimes housing up to 100 people at a time. The Hutong area we visited is being preserved by the governement as it hold so much of Chinese History. We took rickshaws around the area with a really nice tour guide who taught us a lot about the area's history. We visited a local man's house where we were invited in to look around at how they lived. It was an interesting experience as we learnt about the importance of Cricket fighting - how they are chosed, fed and weighed before a fight which could have anything up to a house or wife at stake!

May 17th-

Today was the last day of our 'Best of China' tour, its gone so quickly and I really am going to miss everyone in our group. We have had many offers from different group members to stay with them on our travels and we are definately hoping to meet up with a couple in Melborne.

On our last day we took a minibus to a section of the Great Wall. Arber, Michael and Neil decided to climb up the mountain side to the 8th tower whilst the rest of us took the easier option of a cable car up to the 14th tower. (I was in the same cable car as John Major took in the 90's...). The cable car may have been the easier option but it did allow for some great views. We walked along from tower 14 to 20- which was tough enough on its own, with uneven, upward and downward footpaths. The views from the top were stunning- I was really impressed with the magnitude of the wall and the scenery of the surrounding mountain side.

Despite walking all the way from the bottom Arber still managed to catch up with me before the rest of us reached the top. The views from the top were very much worth all of our hard work. We stopped for a rest at the top and took some 'victory' photographs before walking back down. Arber being Arber spotted a slide coming down the side of the mountain, I walked down whilst Arber persuaded our Group Leader Olive to take the 'tobbogan' with him. Thankfully they ended up in one piece and we took the minibus to the Olympic village. It was still quite majorly under construction considering the Olympics are happening in Beijing next year.

In the evening we went for our final group dinner. We went to a restaurant where we could sample the local speciality of Peking Duck. Dinner was really nice and then it was time for us to sample the local rice wine...56% alcohol...We managed to get through 3 bottles which was enough for 13 of us to have 3 shots each...! Dinner was really nice and loads of fun, it was nice to have the opportunity to give Olive a card we had all signed, a t-shirt and some money for all of her hard work. The group was absolutely adorable and we couldn't have asked for a better group or guide to make the China experience anymore perfect.

 ...Sorry we still haven't been able to upload any photo's none of the computers have been quick enough to transfer them...we will keep trying xxx

Arber:

wow she writes loads if your still awake or still breathing Beijing was just as fun for me bu people really did love taking pictures of Katie including doing it secretly on the road!!!

Forbidden city has a starbucks init!!! - what more do i need to say

whilst there i bought the a map of what i thought was the forbidden city turned out somwhere completly different how dense can you be!!!

the muscial was cool more muscial thatn kung fu so all the girls loved it whilst the guys came out a little underwhelmed although the funny panda doing tai chi t shirts out side made up for it and i nicked a shard of the cast iron that was smashed against a monks head!!!

i also had a chat with one of the tour members who had shot some one in the leg by accident!!! how cool i learnt something very stupid to do with bullets that involves a hammer and luck!

The tai chi in the park was loads of fun but i felt slightly stupid standin with what can only be described as china's blue rinse club i looked a bit of muppet with arms and legs everywhere!!

The Hutong was really cool and that dudes cricket where HUGE they scared the crap out of me and on the way home some girls tried to scam us by inviting us to have a drink with them somwhere but being the hardened travelrs we are saw through it and they were soon seen carry away another hapless tourist to god knows where!!!

The great wall of china - THIS WAS THE ABSOLUTE HIGHLIGHT - it was beautiful amazing and massive, it was a hard slog up the steep steps and the conversation was short and far between the guys walking up with me as we all panted up the hill once i got to the wall i was off to catch up with katie and the group nothing like a bit of artic monkeys to get you running like a mad men along the wall the topogan on the way down was mad and a really quick way down, the tour guide did  take an extra two minutes longer then i did which scared the crap out of me as all i cluld think was i killed the tour guide !!! she did turn up eventually and we had some pancakes at the bottom which where awesome with an entire bar of choclate melted inside them, 5Y for the pan cakes despite the fact they were charging any old mug 150Y - the stadium was impressive if a bit too far away to see properly!!!!

See you later china its been great!