Sophie's travels 2011-2012: 18/2/2012 Beijing, China TRANS SIBERIAN RAILWAY

We had an early start ready to set off for the Great Wall of China. It was a beautiful clear blue sunny day which we later realised was a real luxury when the smog came through over the following days (the wind clears it periodically). The bus trip to the Great Wall was cosy to say the least but we arrived in good time (took about 2 hours) and had about 3 hours to explore the wall. We saw some great scenery on the way out (city to countryside) then once there we caught the gondola up the hill to the wall where we walked right to the end to tower 1 at Mutianyu then back the other way for a bit before getting the toboggans back down again. The views from the wall out to all the surrounding mountains were spectacular, there were some parts of the wall that were so lop sided it felt like they may topple over. The toboggan down was heaps of fun but unfortunately we got stuck behind a really slow person so it ended up being a pretty slow ride. We wandered through the market to a restaurant where we had an included lunch as part of the tour which was very impressive then caught the bus back to Beijing. On the way back we went past a frozen waterfall which was amazing! Back in Beijing we caught the bus to Tiananmen Square for sunset and watched the lowering of the flag which was quite impressive despite the crowds of people.

We had a final dinner together for the end of the tour which was a massive amazing spread (one of my favourite experiences of China is the food!). We then went with Claire (Chris’ sister) to a great Jazz bar where her friend was playing – brilliant music and great atmosphere. We wandered around the lake (which was mostly frozen over) and listened to the music for a while then caught a cab home.