Our final blog for China! It's crazy how fast our time here has gone.

We arrived in Beijing after a 15 hour sleeper train from Shanghai. Beijing means 'North Capital' and used to be called Peking which means 'North and Peaceful City'. Once again we got cabs from the train station with a post-it note from Tori for the driver. The taxi stopped on a main road with no hotel in sight, but eventually we figured out that our hotel was down a little side street. After some more problems with checking-in and sharing some bathrooms, everyone in the group was showered and ready to explore our last city.

Tori had planned some real treats for us, the first one being a cricket show - yes, the insect. We all bundled into the front room of a house for a local lunch followed by the show. We didn't really know what to expect, but we were all hoping for some dramatic crickets doing something impressive like tight-rope walking. Instead, a crazy (but famous - he pointed to his picture in many magazines) Chinese man came in. He showed us his champion crickets and grasshoppers, the homes they live in and coffins they're buried in. Apparently, cricket fighting used to be very popular and due to the gambling, crickets could be worth more than a house(!).

Next we picked up some city bikes and explored the hutongs (traditional alleyways) around Qianhai Lake and the Drum and Bell Towers. In the evening we throughly enjoyed the Beijing Kung Fu Acrobatic Show, a story told through 6 scenes of a young boy becoming a Kung Fu master. It was a great cultural insight into the discipline and lifestyle surrounding Kung Fu. Naturally, we followed up our day with a few beers in a bar by the lake and a cheap bar we found on the way home.

Feeling slightly delicate on our second day, we had a 6 hour walk. Wahoo! We headed from the hotel to Tiananmen Square, the world's largest public square. Tiananmen Square hosted the '89 democracy movement led mostly by students. The movement received broad support but ended in huge amounts of bloodshed with estimates for the death toll being a few hundred to a few thousand. The Chinese government condemned the protest as a counter revolutionary riot and prohibited all forms of discussion or remembrance of the incident. It was quite amazing to hear Tori gloss over that "something happened" in 1989 which we know as the Tiananmen Square Massacre; it definitely highlighted the control of the government here today.

On one side of Tiananmen Square is the entrance to the Forbidden City. The city is about 600 years old, consists of 800 glorious buildings and has been home to 24 Chinese emperors. Throughout the city lies the Dragon Line, a raised path only the emperor used to walk on - it was cool to walk in royalty's footsteps.

Max and some others in the group decided to try some delights for dinner down Wangfujing Snack Street. For an appetiser they had scorpions on a stick, which were moving just before cooked. They moved onto starfish, tarantula and snake for main - all on a stick of course. For dessert, they washed them down with centipede. Steph decided to stick to more usual foods and went for a spring roll and fried ice cream.

Soon enough it was our final day on the tour and it definitely couldn't be topped. We met at 7.30am in the lobby for a 2 hour journey to the Great Wall of China. Originally, the Great Wall was four city walls connected over time for protection and defence. It was at its longest in the Hung Dynasty at over 10,000km. The section of the wall we were headed to is Mutianyu, built in the Ming dynasty. This section of the wall is very special as it has many watchtowers built on steep mountains with forts built on both sides of the wall. It was incredible to see it fade into the distance among the greenery.

We got a cable car up to watchtower 6, walked along the wall to watchtower 5 and then began our climb. Various parts of the wall have slanted steps and the sun was beating down with highs of over 30 degrees which made the walk all the more difficult. It took about 2 hours to walk the length of the Great Wall to watchtower 20. At the foot of watchtower 20, you look up the 460 steps and don't quite appreciate how steep they are. But we made it! Some of our group had gone on ahead of us so we marched to catch them up but alas, we reached watchtower 20 and were the first ones there. 10 minutes later our group started trickling up the stairs - it turned out we passed them when they stopped for a drinks break. The views are incredible, better than you can imagine.

After a few victory photos, we walked back (mostly downhill so it was much easier) to watchtower 6. From there, we had to get a toboggan down the mountain to meet the group at Subway. The toboggan was a black tray type thing with a brake on a metal slide that went on for ages, swaying and swerving down the mountain. A few of the guys in the group went first, followed by Steph and Max. The toboggan was ridiculously fast and almost a little out of control but had amazing views, especially passing over a rickety bridge. Steph demonstrated the lack of health and safety on it by flipping out of it at a crazy speed and sliding down it on the first proper bend. Max zipped past not realising what happened and after the toboggans had all been stopped, Steph got to continue the run with a few nasty grazes on her right ear, shoulder, arm, and knee.

For our final group dinner, there's no better meal you can have in Beijing than Peking duck. It's slightly different to our crispy duck with pancakes back home but it tasted just as good. To end the tour with a bang we went back to our tiny favourite bar and had a fabulous night. Even the owner of the bar got involved with our singing and dancing and before we knew it, there were free beers and shots on the house.

An awful hangover and no Tori the next day meant we were incredibly lazy and spent most of the day in bed. It was quite sad walking around the hotel as half the group had disappeared home; it almost felt lonely! However it was great to catch up with he remaining group members in the evening for one final final dinner (back at the Peking duck restaurant).

The next day we met a few members of the group that were still around for a nice day out in the sunshine. We visited the Temple of Heaven and wondered around the glorious Chinese rose garden there and marvelled at the architecture of the temple. With a few days left to go before Japan, we needed to buy the tourist train pass somewhere so went on a crazy goose chase for that to no avail. Our last stop of the day was Silk Street Market, any girl's dream! It was more like a shopping wall with 6 floors full of designer handbag shops, trainer shops, clothes etc. and the great thing about it is, you could haggle! Our friends got some right bargains but with lack of backpack space we exercised a lot of restraint.

The final day in Beijing was spent researching and booking stuff for Japan. This actually turned into a bit of a nightmare as we were doing it all so last minute and it's the popular cherry blossom season. For a break we walked half an hour to the pagoda set on a hill behind the Forbidden City for 360 degree views of Beijing.

So, a few final points on China:

1. We loved it! And loved our tour group. We believe we could've done it on our own but it would've been tough.

2. As previously mentioned, the squat toilets never get less shocking.

3. It has been very weird having no social media as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. are all banned completely and just don't load at all.

4. Google is also banned and we didn't realise how much we rely on having information available at the touch of a button.

5. It's crazy that even certain words on our blog were blocked out!

6. If you're walking on the pavement or across the road when there's a green man, it doesn't mean you won't get run over. There's still a very real possibility a car or bike is coming at you.

7. All motorbikes and scooters are electric and so are completely silent (thus making being run over even more likely).

8. The weather in May is hot!! 30 degrees plus. We thought we'd need jeans but oh no.

9. The language barrier is bigger than anywhere else we have been. We stopped numerous people in the street to ask for 'Bank of China' (yes, their main bank - the words for which are written everywhere) and they just shake their head and scuttle off.

10. Security in China is massive - every metro and train station has bag scanners. We saw police in normal clothes arrest pick pockets on the street. And at Beijing airport they confiscated our small charging blocks for our iPad/iPhone (boooo).

11. China means 'Middle Kingdom'.

So there you have it, China on a shoestring. We're currently at Seoul Airport, South Korea waiting for our flight to Honolulu (only kidding, it's via Tokyo where we get off). Seoul Airport is pretty swanky and has a lot going on, such as an orchestra playing and a cultural experience doing laps.

Steph and Max x