Beijing

We hadn't planned on going to Beijing, but had been regretting that decision a little. When some fellow trainee Shaolin's said they were going for the weekend we decided to go for it and join them.
Booking a train ticket is a little complex as requires an upload of your passport, but seemed to work and six of us set off in a van to the station after Wudang (internal style, with short staff) training on Friday afternoon having asked permission from our Shi Fu (master), written him a note, AND signed out in the office. When we got to the station we handed our phones over at the ticket office to show the confirmation email (helpfully in English and Chinese) and showed our passports and they duly printed our tickets. One chap hadn't managed to book on line and was upset when there were no tickets left and we had to leave him in Qufu. Six were now five and off we went. The second class train journey was fast and comfortable after Sam managed to successfully negotiate people out of our seats with lots of pointing and smiling.
On arrival, having successfully negotiated the tube system we arrived at the station closest to our hostel. It was situated on a narrow bustling shopping street, heaving with Chinese people, but full of atmosphere. As seems the norm in Asia, people still managed to drive cars down the alley at about 100mph through the thousands of people, with about an inch of clearance on their wing mirrors.

Lots of cafés, boutique shops and street sellers, and quite possibly the coolest Starbucks building ever!

Our hostel was nice and clean and after dropping our bags we headed out for a late dinner. We ended up in a Japanese place which did yummy sushi rolls, but had curiously run out of normal rice (which I would have thought impossible in China, but hey).

A short night sleep then up early for a trip to the Great Wall.
It took 3 hours in the bus, but we then had 3 hours to walk the 6km section of wall we were at which was a quiet section, therefore not heaving with Chinese tourists.
The view from the wall was spectacular and best described in photos:

Long sections of wall were connected with large guard towers:

Some sections were pretty steep:

And some sections had fools on them:

And it was actually quite a work out in the heat, when were were supposed to be resting our battered bodies!
Back to Beijing and we had a yummy Chinese meal on the roof of a restaurant near our hostel and then an earlyish night in beds that were hard, but at least had proper mattresses. The beds at school have 1/2 inch mattresses and aren't very comfy!!
The group split up on Sunday and we went to Tianamen square, where it seems since 1989 the Tanks have been replaced by golf buggy buses:

And then to the forbidden City which was our first experience of swarming masses of Chinese tourists, which is not an experience we hope to repeat (they could do with a queuing lesson). A selection of photos below:

After a while we were tired of being trodden on, poked in the head by sun umbrellas and generally manhandled, so we headed back to our hostel for lunch and then started back to the train station.
As we'll miss dinner at the school we needed to pick up some food for later, but we're not enamoured by the local delicacies:

Luckily we found a bakery!