After returning from Peru it was decided that we would visit China, however due to one thing or another the plan to go there got delayed. So in the year that the Olympics arrived in London after having been in Beijing, we had planned to head off to Beijing and see some of the Eastern parts of China.

For this trip we booked it all through a company called Voyages Jules Verne who had a “Discover China” tour that covered the most important parts of China that had to be seen and would help to cover cultural aspects also.

The preparation for this trip was minimal, but needed us to get a tourism visa beforehand which was done through VJV to ensure it was done correctly. Due to internal flight weight limitations we also had to make sure we packed nothing but the essentials – so for me this meant a couple of lenses for my camera, my camcorder, and iPad. I chose to leave my flash, and non-essential lenses at home as well as ruling out any possibility of taking my tripod with me.

To try and further cut down on space I instead made sure that any essential China tourism information was transferred to my iPad instead of taking one or more heavy books with me, this was also the same for any fiction reading material for the flight and the evenings.

As with other trips I found it useful to research the areas I’d be visiting first so I could try and figure out what sort of shots I would want to take ahead of getting there. Of course though the majority of shots would be figured out just from being there. A last minute decision though was to get a 50mm f/1.4 lens as it would be useful for shots with shallow depths of focus. The only question though was whether it would arrive in time, and with one week remaining until the start of the trip there was still no sign of it.