Tuesday 26 March

Today we rose early.

Of course, despite our lovely tour guide - Johnny's - enthusiasm, most of us we not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a late night at the Martial Arts Theatre.  This led to a slightly late departure to our intended destination of the Great Wall of China.

We stopped at a jade factory en route, where we saw the processes involved in carving jade. A majority of us were taken in by the exquisite sculptures and beautiful jewellery available in the shop, but one or two of us had to remind ourselves that there are other places and other things that we may wish to purchase, to stop ourselves from spending all our Yuan.

Once we peeled ourselves away from the factory, we continued to the Great Wall. The minute we set foot off the coach, we were a hit with the Chinese tourists, who started conversations with many of us. We then embarked on our hike up the wall.

Many of us wanted to reach the top, but once we started climbing it, we changed our minds, and walked as far as we could manage.

All the hard work was worth it in the end, as the views were spectacular, giving us ample photo opportunities.

After the Wall, we had lunch in a restaurant above a Cloisonné factory (cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects - Ed) which presented another shopping opportunity for the shoppers in the group to buy the products available, avoiding the 7ft tall vases.

The Ming Tombs were next on the agenda, which was relaxing and educational, despite the fact that it required yet more walking.  The visit was also amusing due to an incident with a cleaner talking Johnny's water bottle without asking, pouring out the contents and throwing it away. As you can imagine, Johnny was not impressed.

We rounded off the eventful day with a long drive back to Beijing city centre, and dinner in a restaurant where we contemplated the thoughts of a goldfish and cleared two plates of egg fried rice per table.

On arrival back at the hotel, we said goodnight to Johnny and Dong the bus driver using our new linguistic talents in Chinese, and made a start with 'packing' our suitcases in preparation for the overnight train to Xian.

Siobhan Francis.