Beijing calling. This is our forth and last night in Beijing. This is easily the best city we've been to in China and we've been running around for the last 3 days trying to see as much as possible.

We arrived Friday afternoon and it was an early rise Saturday to see Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Tiananmen Square. This is the second time we have seen the mummified corpse of a Communist Leader after we saw Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. We queued with countless other Chinese people and it was all very respectful. 2 Communist Leader down, 1 to go (Lenin in Moscow). The rest of the day was spent finalising the details for the trans-siberan and doing some clothes shopping for our winter woolies.

Next day, Sunday, was another early rise. First stop was St Joseph's, a beautiful cathedral originally built in 1655 before we braved all the tour groups in the Forbidden City. This cluster of ancient buildings within a 10m high wall was off limits for over 500 years and was home to 2 dynasties of emperors. The buildings are beautifully decorated and the courtyards within the walls are huge, imperial audiences of over 100,000 could be held. That afternoon was spent looking through all the shops for souvenirs.

This morning was another early rise and we were on our way to the Great Wall of China. We arrived at Jyongguan around midday and hiked the 10km on the wall to Simatai. This was not only a highlight of our travels around China but a highlight of our trip to date. The wall, while being particulary tough to climb in parts, was awesome, especially the sections which have not been restored. The sight of the wall snaking along the top of the hills/mountains is an awesome sight and something that will stay with us for a long long time. Today was a very good day. Tonight we went in search of Peking Duck, the local speciality, but as we were late getting back everywhere was shut; next time maybe.

Tomorrow we leave China, destination Mongolia. We've to be in the train station at 7am so yet another early rise. I long for a day when i can again sleep to 9am. Till next time when we should be writing from Ulanbaatar....