Thursday 25 April 2013 - Beijing, China

Today I joined a tour to the Forbidden Palace and Great Wall along with 3 others, a German and 2 Americans. The highlight was the Great Wall. We went to a less touristy part of the wall at Mutianyu. Once there got the chairlift to the top and then I left the others for a good solid 2 hour fast walk along the wall. It felt good getting out of Beijing into the fresh air. The weather has been sunny and warm though they said it was snowing at Mutianyu 10 days ago. The scope of the wall is really mind boggling, the amount of work put into it and all human labour, no machines in those days. After finishing the walk got the toboggan down, a lot of fun.

Got back to Beijing at 6pm and tried Peking Duck for dinner, not bad. Then went to a place nearby called Sanlitum bar street, where guys walking on their own get accosted every few metres ... same as other parts of the world .... felt reasonably safe here though.