26 November – 28 November 2013

We arrived in Beijing at 11am and caught a taxi to our new favourite hostel P-Loft. This time we were allocated a real cell in the former prison building, complete with typical prison balcony, staircase and windowless concrete architecture. We headed out to nearby Hutongs to wander the tiny streets and do some last-minute shopping, and stuffed our stomachs with as much street food as they could handle. We booked a Great Wall trip for our final day and enjoyed a lovely ‘cook your own’ style Korean dinner with grilled tofu, duck breast and vegetables… yum. We returned to our cell and having noticed the impressive collection of fungus growing on the bedroom wall we fell quietly to sleep.

We woke early and after wolfing down fresh yoghurt in the hostel we walked to the pick-up point for 8.30am. Together with a handful of other tourists we drove for three hours in a minivan to the Jinshanlin section of the Great Wall. As the tour guide sprinted up to the start of the wall, tourists in toe, we were pleased this was the only organised tour we had booked in our whole trip. We climbed the steps to a well-renovated part of the wall and as we wandered along, the path deteriorated tower after tower. 

After half a dozen towers the unsuccessful postcard selling touts drifted away, allowing us to enjoy the magnificent mountain panoramas. Buffeted by the strong and freezing winds we continued and climbed a considerable height on stepped and non-stepped sections. After 22 towers we abruptly reached our destination at Simatai, with the guide surprised to see we were early… something we were less surprised about given his speed. 


We descended to the car park and were happy to be back in the van, where we could warm up out of the wind. Three hours later we were back in the Hutongs and still in need of a warm drink we headed to a friendly café. We went to Mr Chi’s Dumplings for our final meal of the trip and unsurprisingly over-ordered  yet again. With stomachs full of tasty dumplings we had a final packing session and went to bed.

We woke up early to enjoy a full breakfast at the hostel and braved the excellent metro for the last time, headed towards the airport. We spent our last Yuan on duty-free Belgian chocolate. What followed was what seemed like an endless day in the air. Arriving finally but knackered in Belgium at 9pm local time (4am Alby-and-Clara-time), we went to bed.