After our little late night karaokeing the evening before (and possibly a cheeky trip to MacDonald's and some front step banter before bed) we were all not in the best of sorts. Nevertheless, we had a full day of meetings ahead. I woke early and showered but didn't even have enough time to have breakfast, Alicia had made it clear that we had to be on the bus by 9 which would take us to the embassy, so the girls made sure they were up and ready and piled on to the bus. The boys, however, were nowhere to be seen. Fifteen minutes later, Alicia had scared them to within an inch of their lives, and they jumped out of bed and ran to the bus in a blind panic.

We were going to the embassy to meet an ex volunteer from the late 80s who was a big shot at the British Council and knew about the inner workings of Beijing and a great deal about China having lived here ever since. We were taken to a conference room and over the next hour and a half we were allowed to ask questions which ranged from the Neil Heywood case to how China had changed culturally and economically since it opened its doors to the west. I found it fascinating and on any other day would have listened for hours, although I, like the majority of us, was battling with our sleep deprived brains and admittedly there were some casualties to the irresistible call of a nap. Question after question was asked, until it got to the point where the questioner was sent a chorus of death states by those of us still awake. After the terrible ordeal of trying to remain awake we headed back to the hostel, hungry, tried and feeling low, knowing that we had another meeting to come.

Dan took us to a cute little cafeteria like restaurant down the road that he had stumbled upon earlier in the week and we ordered pork dumplings (finally), my favourite type of Chinese food ever, which put me in a far better mood. Packing and an excursion to find a fan to combat the searing heat followed. A quick nap later (my normal sleeping pattern has disintegrated by this point) and we walked down to the subway for our second meeting of the day at the CEIDA buildings. CEIDA is the semi-government organisation that promotes foreign exchange, educational improvement and English in China, they are responsible for sourcing PT's projects in China and we will get paid a visit by them later in the year. We were taken to a conference room and given tea and water. This lecture seemed to go on forever, and ever and ever. People were falling asleep left right and centre, in the front row! It was a little embarrassing and I felt so terrible on behalf of the speaker, who was a lovely guy, but the information he was tell us was absolutely pointless. It was essentially a colourless slideshow about the operation and statistics of English as a foreign language, most of which was irrelevant. Finally, finally it was time for dinenr, which we had in a building over with some of the CEIDA reps sitting at our tables. This would have been fine had we not been discussing drinking and swearing occasionally (death stares at Jono please) which I am sure they understood, given that they spoke perfect English themselves. Awkward.

This evening was our last in Beijing and so we decided to head out to the bar that we had frequented the previous night. A quick trip to Macdonald's and then we were off. However, our party was reduced in number as 3 of the lads had headed out to follow a Swedish babe that was staying at the hostel and ending up at a expat tapas bar. The bar was quite so we headed back to the hostel to drink at its Tispy bar on the terrace. I had a little bout of homesickness and so skyped friends for a while and then returned for drinks and banter which went on late into the night culminating in another hunger driven trip to Micky D's some more chat and then bed.

Song of the day: 1901 by Phoenix