Having explored Beijing’s hutongs until late (or rather early) the night before, we arose from a rather measily 1.5 hours of sleep to walk over to the Forbidden City in time for sunrise. Fortunately we were situated only 15 mins away (in the fantastic ‘Kelly’s Courtyard‘). Unfortunately it wasn’t the most spectacular of sunrises, however the brief period of ‘blue hour’ was wonderful.

We spent a couple of hours shooting at this particular location, then wandered around Jingshan Park before heading off to the main entrance to the Forbidden City for the 8:30am opening time. A relatively quick look round, then back to Kelly’s for a quick nap before taking a car north to the Great Wall in time for a short but steep hike and sunset!