We thought that although Monday was nice and sunny it would be quite a quiet day because it was a Monday. It turns out that we made a mumption though. Our choice of destination for the day, Fragrant Hills Park, was awash with people.

The park is just outside Beijing and spread over the side of several big hills. At this time of year the opportunities for stunning photographs of trees with their leaves turning red are supposed to be good. Since a trip to Westonbirt Arboretum wasn't on the cards for that sort of thing this year, we needed to fill the gap. We decided to take a taxi out to the park as we were feeling too lazy to try and track down the buses that we needed. I'm sure that the taxi driver managed to find a route that was longer than it needed to be but we got there at about the time we were aiming for anyway so it didn't matter much.

The taxi had to drop us off a little way from the park entrance as the road had become thick with people and it was quicker to walk the last few hundred metres. The driver pointed us into the crowd and then drove off. The road he sent us up was lined on both side by stalls selling all manner of things. Many were food stalls of some sort and the rest seemed to be selling souvenirs and other nik-naks. We passed them all by and made for the park entrance.

Once inside we made our way towards the cable car that went up to the top of the park. At times it was a bit of a fight to get through the crowds of slowly ambling people. On our way we stopped to admire the well kept grounds several times. The views from the cable car were also quite stunning and we spotted several paths off to the left that we fancied walking towards once we had reached the top.

The view of Beijing was quite impressive from the very top of the park and had it not been for the haze (or maybe smog) hanging over the city the pictures would have been good too. We started back down the hill on foot, following paths that we hoped led to some red trees. After some time we found what we were looking for. In fact, most of the way down we found what we were looking for. Getting down though took a lot longer than we had originally thought. We were walking for quite some time, probably an hour and a half before we stopped for a rest. We had an ice cream each while we waited - I never knew that it was a spectator sport.

For most of our walk down we were the only non-Chinese people we could see. Eventually though there were a few western faces to be seen. Some of them went out of their way to say hello like they were desperate to be saved from the madness around them.

At around 3pm we were walking back through the stall lined road trying to find a taxi. We decided that we didn't have enough time to see the Summer Palace so we got the driver to take us to the Drum Tower instead.

The Chinese calendar is tied closely to the appearance of the moon and in the days before clocks and watches drums were used to signal to the surrounding area what the time was and what the date was. The Drum Tower enabled the drums to be heard from some distance away and it looks impressive too. The steps leading up from the ground floor to the drum level are even more impressive though. You'd break a lot of bones if you fell down them.

We spent about twenty minutes taking photos and reading the explanation boards about the Chinese calendar and the purpose of the drums. At the end of this time, three people came out of a little room and did their half-hourly drum banging for a few minutes. Having seen this, we headed outside to the hutong nearby.

Hutong are old residential alleys that used to number in the thousands in Beijing. Some are several hundred years old. Many have been torn down in the name of high rise or road widening but there are plans to protect some of them. We wandered down a couple of streets and through some alleys, frequently coming across dead ends. The whole area was a rabbit warren that only those in the know or with a keen sense of smell could ever hope to navigate successfully. I say smell because it's possible that many of the houses there don't have their own toilets as there are a lot of public toilets around and the ones that we saw you could usually smell from a distance. We passed through a sort of central square where people were playing Mahjong in the streets and old ladies were using exercise equipment that looked like it had come from a childrens' playground. It was all very weird but at the same time brilliant.

By this time my knees were hurting from walking downhill so much. Not since Machu Picchu have we done so much downhill walking. That night we went around the corner to a nearby restaurant that catered largely to some of the big hotels in the area. Consequently we weren't the only foreigners there. The food was nice though. I had my comfort dish, sweet and sour pork.

We tried to ask our hotel about staying one more night when we got back but they didn't seem to understand. I can't say that I blame them, we don't speak very good Chinese.

After picking up our crispy, clean laundry the following morning we trotted off down the road to the bus station that just happened to be near us. We quickly located a 916 bus and clambered on board. A few minutes later and we were off towards the Great Wall of China.

It is possible to see the wall at several different places around Beijing but we chose one of those that was supposed to be quite quiet and not full of people. Badaling is the most popular place to visit the wall but we wanted to be able to take photos that didn't have huge numbers of people in them, hence our choice of Huanghua.

About an hour into the bus trip we reached a big town. We knew that we would have to get off the bus and get in a small taxi for the last leg of the trip but we weren't sure where. We were hoping that it'd be obvious but it wasn't. As the bus got emptier, the attendant asked us where we were going. We pointed at the Chinese for the Great Wall in our guidebook and she gave us a look that suggested that we had missed our stop. Shortly afterwards she gestured to some waiting people when the bus next stopped, one of them whisked us into a tiny minivan and started driving us towards the Great Wall. Somewhat foolishly we didn't agree a price before setting off so we were at little at her mercy when it came to paying. To be honest though, I would happily have paid more to get to the wall than we did so it doesn't really matter that we paid more than we technically should have.

Towards the end of the forty minute drive, we could see the wall snaking across the hills and mountains ahead and we were very soon staring up at it from beside the road. We had to walk across a dam to reach the wall and up a bit of a hill too. A man sitting by the side of the path charged us 2 RMB each as a fee for accessing the wall. I was a bit dubious but 12 pence each isn't much to worry about. Another woman further up tried the same thing but for the maintenance of the ladder we climbed on to the wall with. Initially I resisted but she also only wanted 2 RMB each. Finally we were on the wall.

It was another spectacular day and we could see well in to the distance. We climbed the first couple of sections of wall without any trouble although it was quite steep in places. We were almost completely on our own up there except for a few people walking downwards and two American girls who caught us up as we stopped to take photos.

Just after one of the guard posts a man with a broom called out to us and pointed to a makeshift sign written entirely in Chinese. The only thing we could see was the number 50. We soon gathered that he wanted 50 RMB each to let us carry on walking on the wall. Just two each and I would have been happy enough even though there was no way that he was official. But 50 was taking the mickey a bit. The problem though was how to argue with him. He proved happy enough to block our way and threaten us with a broom, occasionally banging it on the steps to show how the steps were eroding and he was looking after them. I wasn't convinced. The Americans weren't either. Their approach was perhaps a bit blunt but in the face of a big language barrier I can't blame them. They simply said "no" a lot and kept going. The man eventually settled for 2 RMB from each of them and consequently got no more than that from us. He wasn't happy though and we looked back as he grumbled to someone on his mobile phone. I suspect that the someone was the woman a few hundred metres further up but I'll mention her later.

The rest of our time on the wall was amazing. We reached the top of a hill and we could see hills and wall for miles in either direction. We had a small picnic lunch and reveled in the fresh, cool air for a while just a few metres from the tower where a woman was waiting to take money from us. Some people walking downwards had warned us that she was a little on the violent and moody side. Fortunately we had decided not to go any further anyway. The Americans carried on though and we heard a lot of screeching for a few minutes as they obviously refused to pay. After a while it was quiet again and we joked that the woman must have eaten the Americans. We decided to thwart her.

Having taken our time eating our lunch and posing for some pictures, we headed up towards the tower. She could see us coming and got into position ready to demand money from us. When she was out of view though we turned around and started heading down. Curiosity got the better of her though and she came back in to view to see what was taking us so long. As she realised that we were heading down she called to us, beckoning us back. Oh yes, we thwarted her good and proper!

Back in Beijing we checked our email and gave some thought as to what we would eat that evening. We had a piece of paper on which we had printed out the names of some Chinese dishes and words that we might need courtesy of our friend Jake. One of the dishes he had suggested was called "Ants on Trees" (some sort of fried noodles and pork). We decided that we should try and find this dish and went into a nice looking restaurant near the internet cafe They had an English menu available but we couldn't find the dish we were looking for. We asked one of the waiting staff if they had this dish. She conferred with a a colleague for a few seconds and then disappeared. We were only left alone for a few seconds, looking bemused, when she came back and told us that the chef would be happy to prepare this for us. Not quite what we asked for but the end result was good. We ordered the dish and another two as well, a spicy potato one and an interesting sounding shredded pork dish. All three arrived quite quickly and we tucked in to some very, very tasty food. Being the only foreigners in the restaurant we were attracting quite a lot of attention. There were several waiting staff hovering at a discreet distance just curious to see how we got on. Several other tables had people taking the occasional interested glance in our general direction too. I've never eaten for an audience before but that's how it felt.

Not long after we started eating, two other foreigners came in and took a table not too far from ours. After perusing the menu for a while, one of the two came to our table as she wanted to see what we were eating. She ordered exactly the same dishes that we had, not quite what I'd call adventurous!

The interruptions weren't over though. A Chinese woman from another table finally plucked up the courage to come over and chat to us. She told us that she had a bet on with her friend. He said we were American but she said that we weren't. We told her we were English and she was happy that she'd won 200 RMB from her friend. She beckoned her friend over (he didn't speak any English) to tell him the good news and then said that he wanted to be introduced to us as our friend and he wanted to shake our hands. Well, ok. What can you do? After chatting for a little while longer they eventually went back to their table. We carried on eating for a while, catching occasional amused glances from the waiting staff.

Obviously encouraged by the warm reception we'd given the Chinese lady, the family at the table next to us decided to have a go. They chose to talk to the the other foreigners, who turned out to be from Sweden, instead of us though. The little girl of the family could only have been about seven but she had very good, albeit wooden sounding, English. After a brief conversation the girl posed with the Swedes for a photo. We looked on and smiled.

On their way out, the family stopped by our table to say hello to us too. They were visiting Beijing from somewhere else in China and so it's possible that the girl hadn't seen too many foreigners, explaining her curiosity. And who can say no to a polite request from a seven year old Chinese girl to have her photo taken with two foreigners? Especially when she wished us a pleasant stay in China.

We didn't stay long after that. It was getting late, we had eaten a lot and we didn't want to be waylaid much longer.

The Great Wall was one of the last ticks on our "must see" list of things in Beijing. One of the last things we did was visit the Summer Palace the following day. We first went back to the travel agency to pick up our train tickets for the next morning. We took a taxi to the Summer Palace because it was just easier than trying to find the right bus. It was quite a hazy day and so we didn't think that the visit would last too long. That was probably just as well though as were quite late getting up.

The Summer Palace is quite a big place and it's set around quite a large lake. Our fears about the visibility were well founded but we wandered around for an hour or so anyway. At one point we bumped into the little girl from the previous evening as she was walking along a wall. There are 1.3 billion people in China and we met the same one completely by accident two days in a row.

We took a few photos of the Palace grounds but with poor visibility and a sort of saturation level reached with respect to Palaces and temples, we decided to leave. We found a taxi outside and got him to take us back to Qianmen for an early supper (via an internet cafe). On the way back into the city there was a bit of a traffic jam and our driver zigzagged across the road to see what was going on and because he was determined not to be stuck any longer than he had to be. As we got closer we could see some very long skid marks on the road and it looked like we were being held up by an accident. Our driver's interest level went up a bit when he realised and he made sure he got to drive a close by as he could. Very near the only car that seemed to be involved was a single shoe in the road. The car had a big dent in the bonnet and a head sized indentation in the shattered windscreen. Our driver drove slowly by and gleefully pointed out the large pool of blood a few metres in front of the damaged car. Another shoe was in the road some distance further on. Our driver grinned again, I think he had issues!

Back at Qianmen we decided to go back to the same restaurant as the previous night to try some Peking Duck again. The price of a whole duck was about a quarter of what it had been in the Quanjude restaurant and we did wonder if the quality would suffer a lot as a result. Knowing what we wanted, we ordered Peking Duck for two and waited for a few minutes before realising that something was seriously wrong.

Half a Peking Duck wasn't enough the other night (once we had discarded a proportion of the skin and fat) but a whole duck was plenty. Imagine then how much two ducks looks like? Somehow our desire for duck for two had been taken as two ducks. Part of me wonders why it wasn't questioned but then I suppose they may have seen it as impolite to do that. We didn't know how to explain the mix up once they were carving our ducks for us and so we just sat there and ate far too much duck. Given the amount before us we concentrated only on the most fat free bits and eventually we could eat no more. That wasn't the end though. Two huge bowls of duck stock soup and two huge plates of duck "bits" (probably stewed offal I think) were brought out for us. Pretending to rest for a few seconds we formulated a quick plan. We asked one of the staff for the bill, paid him and then ran!

On the way back to our hotel we stopped to buy a phone card to call England with. We wanted to be prepared for the weekend so that we could call my grandmother and wish her a happy birthday. In a little shop on the way back from buying the card we found a bag of Haribo! Along with a couple of beers to help settle the ducks and some biscuits and things for the following day and the train journey, we bought the Haribo and the lady in the shop added it all up on a talking calculator. The great bit though was the fact that the calculator spoke Chinese (of course) and that it spoke in such an enthusiastic voice. It was like it was very, very happy to be adding a bunch of numbers up. Maybe it was just the beer I'd already had and the ducks messing with my head though.

We were up late again the next day and spent the morning packing our bags. We managed to leave our room only about ten minutes before the midday checkout deadline. The reception staff understood our request for them look after our bags on the first attempt. It was the easiest thing we'd ever done at the hotel!

We headed to Tiananmen Square one last time with the intention of buying some postcards. Of course, when you want people to hassle you and sell you postcards, they're not there. Eventually though they appeared and we got what we were after. At one point though we were in the middle of haggling when the person we were haggling with swiftly walked away, leaving us with the postacrds we were haggling for. All around us there were many people with shifty eyes all walking away. The answer was the police van cruising by just behind us. As soon as it was gone, all the shifty people were back and determined to sell things to us.

After shopping we had some tea in a cafewhose staff had being trying, unsuccessfully, all week to get us to come inside. We took our time and then headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch a taxi to the train station. Bye bye Beijing.