And so our adventure begins!! After a 7 hour flight to Dubai, a 2 hour wait at the airport for our connecting flight and another 7 hours in the air, we finally land in Beijing at about 4pm. Before we even land we can see how smoggy it is, it's crazy, this massive haze over the city that gives the city quite a grey look, you can understand why they wear the face masks to protect themselves.

Our transfer met us off the plane and drove us through the city to our hotel - Hotel Kapok - it was about a 40 minute drive so not too bad, but long enough after such a long journey already! We were very tired, but after checking in and a quick freshen up, we decided to have a little wander.

The hotel location is fab - just a 10 minute walk to the Forbidden City (you can actually see it at the end of the road), and plenty of eating places opposite the hotel and a small grocery type store just a few doors down. There's even a 'Subway' opposite! We ended up eating over the road from the hotel in this cafe/restaurant. The food was super cheap and you should have seen the size of the bowl the soup came in, there was probably enough for at least 10 portions!! We ordered far too much but it was really tasty and just what we needed. We had a crispy green salad, noodles with soy sauce and veg, hot and sour soup, and a beef and sautéed potato concoction. 100¥ for all of that, about £10!!

By now it was about 9pm and we were far too tired to do anything else - and with a 530am alarm set for our Great Wall tour all I wanted to do was sleep!!

Not really hit me yet that we're actually in CHINA!! xxxxx