The plan was to wake up early, have breakfast at 7, then to meet the group at 8 am

We woke up at 7.50am. Aargh!

Threw on some clothes. Quickly packed a rucksack and then rushed downstairs. No breakfast. It was still raining as we headed to the train station and when we emerged at the other end it was STILL raining. Our tour guide Richard is intent on losing us all and we rushed behind him trying to keep up. The format is 5 minutes of information, 15 minutes to look around then running behind our guide again.

Tiananmen Square was huge but packed with tourists, Chinese, in brightly coloured caps and jackets being led by red and yellow flag wielding guides (they had just had their Golden holiday - a big national bank holiday type of break).

We proceeded to the Forbidden City which again was huge but full of tourists. We spent an hour there and managed to grab a rare coffee before we headed back out. We got the train back and then arrived at a run down Chinese eating House for lunch. We had pancakes with some kind of meat filling. The rest of the group mostly had noodles. The restaurant walls were filthy and the kitchen looked the same. Not the sort of place we would have chosen for ourselves but our guide was confident enough....perhaps they’re related.

From here we headed to a tea house where we were introduced to the art of tea drinking. We sampled 5 different teas and again we were rushed along without any real time to take it in before being shown the various packets of tea that were for sale. This is a well oiled routine.

We then headed, as a group, to a supermarket to buy snacks for our first day of trekking along the Great Wall. As you would expect the fish was very fresh i.e. alive!

Alan went for a run and encountered a park full of middle aged men playing cards, doing Tai Chi, gambling and mostly standing around smoking....the nations favourite sport. Then it was off to McDonald’s for dinner.

Afterwards we went to the Shaolin Monks Kung Fu show. It was a bit dramatic, but the small boys doing somersaults off of their heads (literally, not in a drugged up sense) were amazing.

Back at our hotel in was time for a well earned bottle of wine which Angela managed to open without the use of a corkscrew ( a true talent!) and a good nights sleep.