We stopped at what is known as the best section of the wall, Badaling, at the entrance they had Black bears as an attraction. We started queuing, couldn't help noticing all the stares we were getting, a lot of Chinese were touring in the past few weeks our guide told us and I'd swear some had never seen the likes of us.To get us half way up the mountain hey had a kind of slow roller coaster , telling us to jump out at the top while the thing was still moving we s...

We arrived in Beijing at 3.00pm local time after leaving Cork at 08.30am the previous morning, with a six hour wait in London and a stop over in Qatar (which at that point we decided we needed a beer only to be served alcohol free). When we got through emigration we noticed all this , what looked like cotton wool floating in the air, and people wearing masks, we were wondering what we left ourselves in for. The taxi man hadn't a clue what we were saying, he had t...