To my surprise, I was invited to go on the Beijing and Great Wall Camping with students for the second year in a row. I couldn’t say no….great food, great company, and camping was all I needed. Last years trip was so much fun, I decided to go again.

The itinerary was almost exactly the same with some minor changes because of the high heat index and time restraints. It is not easy to get up at 3 in the morning and have 65 kids on a high speed train for four hours and expect to get a lot done during the day (but we did).

As we were divided into two different groups, we were able to visit the Houtons, acrobat show, and Forbidden City all while staying in a hotel the first night.

Beijing is a fun city, however the real fun is hiking up to the part that is not restored with not a tourist in sight. Camping under the stars and cooking your own skewers while sitting around a campfire is my idea of a good time. As it was very hot that day, we took a short cut up the mountain in order to get everything sorted at camp. The food was great as always with lamb and chicken skewers, corn, and cilantro wrapped in tofu. The kids had a great time as they had a little dance and karaoke party on the wall, after they went to bed, they probably had to listen to all the adults snore. We walked back along the jagged part of the Great Wall of China in the morning (which was a more difficult hike than I remember). A milestone for many of the kids was making it all that way in less than three hours, down to the small town to eat and heading back to Shanghai via Beijing. And thus was my last trip in China not counting Tibet….