Ok - quick blog entry for the past two days! The 1st (Wednesday) was Claire's 19th Birthday, and the morning of which was spent on the overnight train. Our train was divided into compartments of 6, with bunk beds and barely any room for luggage. On the whole though it was pretty clean (if not a little rickety) and everyone managed to get some sleep - but not to the toilets, which were squats, and DISGUSTING! We arrived in Xi'an in the early morning and were led...

Monday morning was an early start for a private transfer bus to a place called Simitai, the steepest length along the Great Wall. We were really excited, though a little apprehensive of our fitness for trekking.... knowing it was the hardest part to walk along. The bus took 3 hours so we all had a wee nap to build our strength, At about 11am we got there and set off with our daysacks to climb onto the wall itself. The area visitors tend to go to on the Great Wall...

Saturday was one of our free days, but with the group, so we opted to take a guided tour around the Forbidden City and Tian'amen Square. We were a little anxious that we'd feel too held back - we'd got to grips with Beijing and felt confident enough to look around ourselves, but to get the history and background from our guide Vivien was much needed. We learnt all about the Emperor and got our heads around the different Dynasties which at first, seemed quite conf...

Friday was our last day to ourselves. It already felt like we'd been in Beijing for ages, and we loved it already. Will was right in saying it's the safest place in the world, despite the big roads and the number of people and the dirt, neither of us have felt uneasy at all so far. Friday morning we had a couple of hours to kill before we checked out, so we took the metro to a nearby park called Dongdan Park. This is where we first saw one of those jazzy outdoor ...

Thursday was equally hectic! We're starting to feel achey, similar to the London Legs! The morning we had another panic - we tried to take out some money from the local ATM machine, only to be told by an official in the post office that our mastercards wouldn't work internationally - imagine the horror! Luckily, we got our wires crossed, and you could only use those ATMs if you had a Chinese post office account, so we nipped across the road to a shopping centre t...