Ni hao! I am writing this time from an amazing little hostel in Beijing! We checked in after the tour finished yesterday and were dropped off by the taxi driver on a normal looking road. I then spotted a sign for the hostel so we started walking down this small alleyway, stepping over bricks and scaffoliding poles etc etc and the alleyway slowly got narrower and I slowly got more worried that I was going to be sleeping in a backstreet beijing gutter but then we saw a small door in the wall. Above the door was written "sitting on the walls courtyard hostel" so we rung the little bell and after a few seconds someone pulled open this small door and invited us in. Random yes? But inside its awesome! The main communal area is done like a courtyard with rooms going off either side and a terracotta warrior overlooking a little water feature (good feng shui). I am in a 4 bed dorm room whichis very clean and confortable and the best thing is that... it has the cheapest beer in Beijing! 30 yuan for a big cold bottle,; thats about 30 pence! We are also within easy walking distance of the forbidden city, tianenmen square and the lake so pretty amazing really. Wish I could have spent all my nights here though!

But anyways, back to where I left y'all last time. We left Pingyao at about 9am, expecting approx 4-5 hour journey to the hanging temple. We drove through some crazy rural scenery along road with a 60km/h speed limit for some reason!?!? We stopped at one point for petrol and the guys working the pumps came over and were very interested in Alex, I think they are now planning a trip to Canada! haha but anyways, we arrived at the temple at about 4:30pm!! It was all very worth it though bcause the temple is STUNNING! Its built on varous lengths of wooden stilt which dig into the almost vertical rock face to give the impression that it has literally just been thrown onto it and is somehow still standing! To be honest I dont think any of us know how it is still standing because on closer inspection all the wooden stilts are cracking and it just all looks extremely unstable. It was a wicked experience walking in China's smallest temple on the side of a mountain held up only by mouldy wooden stilts!

After the temple we hopped back on the bus for another 2 hour journey to Datong which must be one of the skankiest places i've seen! From about 5 miles outside the centre the development is crazy- building sites left right and centre, and our bus driver had to turn around because they were digging up a road infront of us that had been open just two days before! Also there are huge slag heaps on the outskirts which gives the city a very... unique... smell and rubbish littering the streets and jazz. Yummy. Luckily we only had to grab a quick bite to eat and then had a bathrobe party in the hotel watching Nacho Libre!

Next morning we headed out towards the Yungang Grottoes which are 53 caves stretching over 1km full of statues of buddah and some other people. The carving is really ornate and considering they are 1500 years old it was a little bit magnificent as our tour guide would say. We were also quite a local attraction again and had to pose for some more photos with overexcited asians! At one point we were checking out this mahussive 1500 year old buddah and an asian bloke came in and started at the buddah, then noticed us, started at buddah, stared at us, weighing up his options before choosing us and taking photos! A bunch of westerners or 1500 yr old massive ornately carved buddah... hmmmm

After the caves we headed back to Datong on the bus to catch our afternoon train to Beijing. However as I mentioned earlier the roads are crazy so we sat in traffic for a long time, the train departure time getting ever nearer until the point at which we arrived at the hotel, grabbed our bags (we had to push past a bride having her wedding in the hotel! poor girl... wo ai ni!) and sprinted across the square to the train station. We made the train and spent the next 7 hours playing yemen, mafia and just generally bumming around...

We arrived in Beijing about 7:30pm and grabbed some food from the supermarket for breakfast and had a meal next to the hotel where we discovered the mystery flavour that is CLOVES!

Next morning we did the classic tourist gig- tianenment square and forbidden city! It was packed out with tourists which was a bit crappy but still cool! After this we decided to head to the Olympic Park! As there were 7 of us we had to jump into two taxis and agreed to meet Alex, Dodo, Alanna and Helen between the birds nest nd the watercube. Me tom and celine arrived and waited around for a bit... then waited a bit more... walked around a bit... took a few photos... got a bit bored and no sign of them! After about 40 mins we were about ready to give up when Alanna appears out of nowhere saying that their Taxi had dropped them off in the wrong place so they had to get the subway! Suckers... haha but anyway, after a pot noodle, short rain shower (i had my poncho!) and some more asians taking photos of us we headed to the birds nest.

I assumed that we would be able to walk around abit, sit in the seats etc but it turned out that they have covered the track with boards and fake grass and we were actually allowed to wander around it! The stadium itself was actually not as big as i thought it would be etc and wembley is 10x more impressive but it was awesome to get to go on the track! Tom, Matt, some random Asian guy and I had a 100m race and despite controvery about a false start I'm coming home with the gold medal! We had a reaaly good laugh in the stadium and then headed to the water cube which was cool (apart from the guy spitting like a mule in the toilets) By this time it was getting on towards rush hour which in Beijing is absolutely mental. I'm sure some people in their cars set off when they were considerably younger than they are by the time they reach the other side of Beijing! A longish taxi ride got us back to the hotel in the rain (RAIN???) and we bummed around a bit before meeting up with the group for the Kung Fu Show.

When anyone says kung fu to me i think of men splitting blocks of pure diamond over each others heads etc but the kung fu show proved that it is very different. It was a lot of 'prancin around' ( i wouldnt say that to their face though) and a few bits of action but generally quite slow. Really interesting the misconception we all had about it though! We also had some annoying american jocks sitting infront of us which was a bit annoying. We had some dinner after the show before grabbing the public bus back to the hotel for a good nights sleep before the great wall the next day!

It was an early start to try and avoid the traffic the next morning but we were all way too excited to care. A 90 min drive got us to the wall where we grabbed a chairlift up and ooh it was awesome! Having seen the pyramids in egypt and the the teracotta warriors and stuff I can safely say that this is the most amazing thing i have ever and probably will ever see. We had amazing weather aswel