Seven was far too early to be woken, with only precious hours sleep, but I soldiered on for our epic Great Wall hike. We started off from the lodge in the village, walking out along a concrete road in the humid morning air. Through the path we hit abandoned buildings and household dogs set on the loose. After about 10 minutes we hit a small path that lead up into the green hillside which officially started our hike. It was torture. We could see the dip of the spine of the wall along the hillside from a distance, little did we realise the immense effort it would take to reach such a height. We may have only walked for about an hour, but the incline was steep and the humidity was intense. It was a painful sweatathon in which I was slowly dying, torn between wanting to reach the top and wanting to give up and have a nice shower and feel clean once more. In the end all of the volunteers made it. Tops came off, photos were taken, joyous moments captured forever. It felt like an epic achievement and, in the end, worth it. I started to cool off as fog and cloud drifted over the wall. Once we had taken a group photo, we headed back down again (a much easier journey) and back to the lodge.

After lunch Alicia sat us down for a group chat about a couple of dos and don'ts and then we were told that we would be split into two groups and given language lessons. As I can speak basic Chinese I was allowed to be excused and so I had an extra-long power nap on the concrete bed which, despite being incredibly uncomfortable, felt amazing to my confused and tired body.

Once we were all ship shape and ready to go, we headed back to Beijing. It was decided that we would venture out enthusiastically into some karaoke or KTV after eating at a duck restaurant that evening. The duck restaurant was brilliant, another back alley surprise, we found ourselves in air conditioned rooms off to the side of the main dining area. It was a duck restaurant and so duck pancakes were the order of the day. The number of dishes brought to us seemed to be never ending and the banter was brilliant. Some snaps of Dan working his chopsticks walrus style and Nold happily posing with a star struck waitress were captured forever and then we headed back to the hostel. Alicia knew of a place where we could get into the KTV spirit and those up for it headed back out to find a bus. A little side note here, the Beijing public transport system is, even if you have to walk quite far to access it, surprisingly good and well above my initial expectations. We arrived at a massive hotel, kitted out with marble floors and Chinese vases. Taken to a back room in the basement, I was a little uneasy, it seemed to well-lit and it was only for our party, I had been expecting a seedy looking nightclub with low lighting and some bad nineties songs. However, four bottles of Absolute later and we were badly belting out Keisha and the Black Eyed Peas and we were having a riotous time.

After paying and leaving, it was decided that a visit to the pub was in order, hailing cabs to take us back to the hostel, our cab driver had no idea where we wanted him to take us, so we dramatically pointed at the taxi in front (carrying other tipsy volunteers) and yelled "follow that cab!". Back in the hu tong district I headed down the road with Ella, turning round I spotted Pete and Nold wobbling along on the other side of the street behind us. Ella and I stopped to make sure that they were ok and by the time they reached us, we had lost everyone else! After a quick search we gave up and piled into a bar to drink cheap beer and swap stories. When we did decide to walk back, low and behold, one of our lost friends stumbled out a door for a fag break, walking straight into us! We joined the rest of the group playing pool in a cute little bar tucked down a little corridor that had a good selection of western drinks; it even served cocktails (impressed!).