So  yesterday we walked more and climbed more stairs than we ever thought imaginable.

Had breakfast in the hostel (pancakes yum), and felt pretty bad for ordering a cappucino, which was on the menu but the clearly didn't really know how to make it and they spent ages on it- good though! We organised a taxi for 8am to  take us to the great wall and the Ming tombs, and they turned up complete with a tour guide that we deinitely had not organised."Sophie" was pretty chatty until she told us we were going to the wall via several "tourist shops "(the classic tour guide rip off), and that we were going to have lunch at a naff restaurant. Anyway, we were pretty determined that we weren't going to any shops and said f she dared take us to one we would not be getting out the car. She also tried to earn a tip by saying she didn't get paid much. After watching her playing on an iPad, iPhone and a blackberry in combination with her attempts to buy us fake tickets, she didn't earn much.

Arrived at the mutiyanu section of the wall and ascended on a rickety chairlift. It was an interesting adventure for those of us who aren't keen on heights! Made it to the top though where the views were pretty spectacular. Then we started walking along the wall and it got even better! It's  literally breath taking, you just can't believe it. And then when you start climbing it actually does take your breath awAy...for the BSMSers of you , imagine climbing the Thomas kemp tower to the 14th floor over and over, except you're inside an oven. Or doing 3 spin classes back to back mixed with bikram yoga . Amazing photo opportunities though...and we got ourselves a nice tacky golden medal for climbing the wall! Also had a chuckle at some american tourists who decided to try and walk along a bit of the wall where you had to cling on rather than use a handrail...we were a bit worried pur first aid skills would be required but luckily they all survived! Once we'd had a wander, we  headed back to the toboggan to get back down the mountain....did it, and survived. Hurrah! Managed to control mine with one hand so I could get a video of the two of us going down. 

Found Sophie (who was in a mood with us for being half an hour late...we blamed it on nicolas snails-paced tobogganing), grabbed some massively overpriced lunch and headed for the ming tombs (according to Sophie, "nothing special and worth skipping"). Well, we thought it was pretty special, and we got some amazing views over the countryside. There are 13 Ming Tombs (one for each emporer who has died), but we only saw one....7km walk to the next one so we thought we'd give it a miss!

Then we went to the summer palace,  another stunning but absolutely ginormous place to visit. Happy at this point to say goodbye to a fairly irate sophie (still unhappy that we refused to  visit the shops where she would have got loads of commission!!). 

The palace surrounds an enormous lake, and in a fit of craziness we decided getting a pedallo would be a good idea- until half an hour later when I've lost the ability to steer, our legs are dead and it's still 35 degrees! And every group of Chinese people on the lake is either staring at us, laughing at us, papparazi-ing us or trying to knock into us. They clearly all thought we were hilarious though,particularly  when we nearly had a side on collision with a mini ferry boat- but crisis averted due to nicolas superior navigational skills and some very frantic pedalling. And we managed to get the boat back to the right place despite a mini crash into the wrong jetty and a stroppy man shoo-ing us away. after all that  we then clocked  onto the fact that most people had boats with little outboard motors and we could have saved our tired legs and dignity. After a thousandth bottle of iced lemon tea and up another bazillion steps to another pagoda, the "cloud dispelling temple" ( not doing very well, looking at the colour of the smoggy sky).Tremendous hike, again, but another awesome view.

We then set off to another adventure- tackling the Beijing underground for the first time. Have to say we severely underestimated it- it's organised, clean, rapid, cheap (20p a ticket!), and really easy to navigate. Did learn that you don't let people off first here, and it's definitely okay to use your elbows or just push people off the train.

So we went to the Olympic park to see the birds nest stadium...again absolutely enormous and by this point we had already walked about 3 marathons so we got a golf buggy tour round - all in chinese interspersed with the man's hacking cough. Enjoyable. Nic purchased some olympics 2008 merchandise ( potential eBay profit?!) and we got on the underground to head towards the silk market. A whimsical stop off at the Hyatt turned into a delicious lychee cocktail and some hideously expensive spring rolls (which Gemma dropped on the floor as she still hasn't quite mastered the use of chopsticks!),  on the 66thfloor with the traffic crawling below us which was beautiful. 

We had intended to get to the silk market to end our day with a bit of shopping, but by the time we'd spent a while over our cocktails, it was shut.....so we headed for a taxi home. As usual, they tried to rip us off (£12 for a journey of ten minutes...no thanks), so we tried to find the nearest subway....walked about an hour, got lost, got tired, sore feet, ..just generally walked-out. Absolutely maxed out on forms of Chinese transport today: car, chair lift, toboggan, pedallo and metro. Bit of an adventure! Home eventually though, just in time to sort out plans for tomorrow...going to stay more central in the city and also get some shopping in. Supposed to rain so packing the pocket ponchos!

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