We arrived in Beijing on the 4th September 2008. What a big, no enormous city. We met up with our group over dinner and beers, 3 Australians Scott and Emma a couple and Petty. There were 4 Brits Ben, Paul, Becky and Dan another couple, Hully a guy from Belgium, Stefan and Doina a elderly couple 60 odd from Denmark and our guide Don Chi. We started our travels of China a day later we went to The Great Wall and walked 13km before finishing off on a death slide across a reservoir. We saw the sites of the city, the forbidden city, summer palace, temple of heaven, the olympic stadium, birds nest and Chaniman square where nobody knows about the guy who stood in front of the tank and if you mention it, apparantly you can be arrested for it. We watched the opening of the para olympics in a bar whilst playing pool, very sureal. We continued our journey through China, Xian, Chengdu to see the Pandas and experience a typical night out in China, very strange we walked into the club after showing ID we were asked how much we were going to spend, this would determine which floor and which table we would be seated in the club. The bouncers/security were dressed like soilders and we could not move away from our table to dance or to get a drink only to go to the toilet, if we wanted a drink we would have to call a server. There was one big dance floor in the adjacent room to the club, but again if you wanted a drink you had to be seated and a server would get you a drink. This dance floor was full of people and we were the only westerners in the club so we got alote of attention, hully had his wallet removed from his pocket by 1 of the people crowding round us, but this didnt stop him, he stayed out all night. We moved onto Yangshou an amazing place very beutiful and the first place where people knew a little English, we went on a cycle ride and climbed moon hill where a woman followed us all the way up and all the way down trying to sell us water even though we were carrying our own, we went to Don Chi's house for lunch and met his wife and baby "Morning Snow" and the rest of his family including his sister 1000 huan, she was called this because his parents had a daughter and then Don Chi and in China you can only have 1 son, but Don Chi's parents wanted another son, so they had to pay 1000 huan to have the right to have another child, which ended up being a girl. We sailed down the Yanzee River where we were the only Westerners on the Boat and the Chinese proceeded to give us as much alcohol as they could, also drinking with us, the staff decided to close the bar for the safety of the Chinese as they were getting very drunk and were not capable of looking after themselves, which could be dangerous on a boat. Apparantly the river is now 20m higher due to the construction of the 3 Gorges dam. We climbed a mountain and spent 3 nights in a Monestry after beating off the thieving monkeys along the way. We were awoken each morning at 5am by the Monks chanting. We visited the site of the Terrocota army the size was amazing. Apparantly the Emperor of the time wanted to take his army with him when he died all of them, but his closest adisors managed to persuade him not to as his son the succesor to the thrown would not have a army to protect the country. So they came up with the idea of making a replica of each soilder to bury with the emperor and to protect him in the after life. We finished off crossing the boarder into Hong Kong after seeing how beutiful and amazing China and its people are and sampling the many foods it as to offer including Pigs feet, pigs throat, chicken feet, snails, buffalo stomach and god only knows what else we asked Don Chi not to tell us what he was ordering until we had eaten the food.

Crossing the boarder into Hong Kong was funny, it is now a state of China but Don Chi gave us a number to0 ring in case they would not let him through, luckily he got through, he had 2 weeks on his Visa and we had 3 months, strange. We went out for Dinner as it would be our last day together. The next day me, Donna, Dan Becky, Paul and Ben went upto Victoria Peak and looked across Hong Kong and Hong Kong Island. Wev then went to the Electronic Market where I purchased a small laptop at a very good price. That night we met up with Don Chi at aIrish Bar and celebrated Don Chi's Birthday, Vodka, Tequilla, beer we soon realised again that the Chinese dont have a good tolerance to alcohol, well not as tolerent as us. On the third day the remainder of the group that had not flown on said goodbye and we looked forward to the next country Vietnam