We met up with our tour group of 10 people - 8 Brits and 2 Aussies. Weird being around so many British people all of a sudden!

Our first day of the tour was a visit to the Great Wall of China....but not the easy, renovated, touristy bit of the Great Wall oh no...a challenging 10k stretch of crumbling wall with no flat bits only steep hills and steep drops! In some places we were climbing steep steps with both hands and feet or tentatively climbing down what appeared to be a sheer rock face! We can safely say that this was probably the most physically challenging thing we have ever done ..but worth it - the views were spectacular! At the end of the walk we had the choice of walking another 30 minutes down to the car park or sliding across a gorge on a 'death slide'...despite neither of us liking heights there was no way we were walking another inch and so picked the death slide!

During our next few days in Beijing we visited Tianammen Square and the Forbidden City along with virtually the entire 8 million strong population of Beijing - given that it was National Day! Again we were unsure whether the Chinese were more excited about seeing the sights or us...as we seemed to get photographed more than the 800 year old buildings! Oh the fame....

We also went to see a charity for the learning disabled and had calligraphy lessons from the trainees and a performance of song and dance...one guy deviated from the fan dance and pretended to machine gun the audience with his fan! In the evening we had a trip to see Chinese Acrobats where the numerous mistakes were very amusing and a random parrot divebombed Kim and then knocked itself out on a wall, landing crumpled in the lap of a rather surprised Chinese man! Mark went on another visit to the Birds Nest Stadium (he's obsessed!) but this time managed to get a ticket from a tout to get inside...he says it was worth it (Kim had gone to the Silk Market instead!)