Monday, We arrived in Beijing at 6:00 after a 8 hour night train. We were greated by our new guide Luna and taken to our hostel, we all had showers and food then packed a overnight bag for our trip to the Great Wall. At 9:30 Luna took us on a small walking tour of the local area so we could get our bearings, she showed us the bank, where we can buy local breakfast, shopping markets and streets and the ancient city gates, everyone bought supplies for our mini trip, it's very cold in Beijing so Laura bought some gloves and another jumper. We set off for our trip to the Great Wall at 12:30, we drove 2 and a half hours out of the city, past the magnificent restored section of the wall which was packed with tourists, to a small village where we stopped for lunch and gained permission to hike to a unrestored section of the wall. The hike took about 30 minutes uphill to our section of the wall, completely unrestored, not another tourist in sight, the view was so beautiful. We set up our tents just next to the wall, using it to shelter us from the very chilly wind, we did some hiking up and down either side and took many photos, before we knew it we were watching the sunset. After sunset it got very very cold, we made a bonfire and drank alcohol to keep us warm!! We played some games and sang some songs, Ben did a cub camp song which everyone enjoyed. When the fire died down it got too cold to stay out so we hit the hay.

Tuesday, we woke early for sunrise after a sleepless night due to being completely frozen, it was - 4° in the tents! We walked up to a view point, still all wrapped in our sleeping bags and sat and waited for the sun to make its amazing appearance. When the sun arrived, a few including Laura went back to bed to warm up and Ben hiked a bit further along for more views of the wall and mountains. We packed up our tents and hiked back down to our bus then slept nearly the whole 2 and a half hours back to the city, stopping off at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Venue 'The Birds Nest'. When we got back we all showered and sorted through our stinky bonfire clothes before heading out to a Gymnastic show, Ben loved watching the motorcycles go round and round the metal cage and Laura loved the girls on their bicycles. After, we went for a traditional peaking Duck meal which was tasty.

Wednesday we had a bit of a lie in then Luna took us on a walking tour of Beijing, first we visited Tiananmen Square named after the gateway that separates the city from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history, outside China, the square is best known in recent memory as the focal point of the protests of 1989, a pro-democracy movement which ended on 4 June 1989 with the declaration of martial law in Beijing by the government and the shooting of several hundred or possibly thousands of civilians by soldiers. We were all aware of this historical event and the facts around it however Luna advised us that only 12 people died during the protests which had us questioning propaganda. We walked to the Forbidden City, the Chinese imperial palace built in 1406 to 1420, which served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years. The complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 180 acres making it the largest ancient palatial structure in the world. After, we took the metro to a fake goods market where everyone had fun haggling away, we purchased a Chinese waving lucky fortune cat. We chilled for the rest of the afternoon then went for a group dinner and said our goodbyes to Karen and Anna as their trip ends in Beijing.

Thursday we had a long lie in, packed our bags then sat around in the hostel watching movies and eating. At 15:00 we took the MRT to the train station then caught our train to Hangzhou.