Woke up at around 9.30 - was so pleased I'd managed to sleep for 12 hours. I'd decided the hotel breakfast was a bit of a rip off so I picked up a map and headed out. I walked to Tian'anmen Square and caught the metro to the Temple of Heaven. The metro system was extremely user-friendly and all stations are announced in English. No problem!

I arrived at the right metro station, and walked around the perimeter of the gardens to the north entrance. The temple buildings are surrounded by really lush gardens, so I wanders around these for a bit before heading into the buildings. The architecture was incredible. I started with the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests and then walked across and impressive bridge to the Vault of Heaven and the Round Altar. Although I didn't really understand much about their historical significance (all the signs were in Chinese) the buildings were fascinating - although it still felt a bit like I was in a chinese themed amusement park, which wasn't helped by the fact they piped really cheesy chinese music all around the buildings and gardens! I saw all the chinese eating ice-pillows so I bought one... Basically sugar on a stick but great for dehydration.

Feeling hot, sweaty and hungry I left the temple and boarded the metro again, this time headed for Wangfujing, the main shopping area. After spotting some insects skewered on sticks (and still wriggling) waiting to be deep-fried my stomach turned and I shamefully bailed on eating local cuisine and headed to McDonald's. Afterwards I grabbed a bottle of plum juice (so thirsty!) and wondered round the shops to cries of 'laydee laydee come here!' and the occasional arm grab. Lots of tourist tat on sale - fans, chopsticks and buddhas. I grabbed a yoghurt drink and then headed back to the hotel to relax before meeting my group.

The group meeting was at 6pm. I recognised Abigail from her facebook picture so went to say hi. It turned out we are sharing rooms for the trips, so I took her up so she could drop her things off. We then went back to the foyer and met Leah, our Chinese guide. There are 15 in our group including 8 Brits under 30, 4 of us travelling alone. The rest of the group comprises an Estonian couple, a Canadian couple and an American mother and two kids. Abi and I sat at the end of the table with a Scottish girl called Lucie and two 18 year old boys from Kent called Alex and James. After an introductory chat from Leah we headed out to a local restaurant for dinner.

We sat in two separate rooms, with only one table in each room. The tables were round and the centre of the tables spun round so it was easy to share dishes. Leah ordered for us, a selection of meat and vegetable dishes and some rice - all really good. After dinner we popped to the supermarket and then headed to bed, ready for an early start for the Great Wall the next day.