Climbing The Great Wall

We had one of the coolest days ever! We met up with four other Holt families and went on a tour of the Great Wall and Old Beijing. The wall is everything you can imagine! We climbed up 850 meters to the uppermost part of the Wall in our area. It took about 11/2 hours and was one of the hardest climbs we have ever done. There were times when the grade was so steep, you were practically walking horizontal! And there were more pushy tourists than you can ever imagine! I finally just had to laugh when I was pushed around by two old Chinese ladies that were about 6 inches shorter than me...and that's saying a lot. It was pretty funny. Hannah even had one family request she take a picture with them! She was kind enough to oblige. But, the best part was the view. It was gorgeous! The Chinese terrain is different than anything else we have ever seen...very Mulan-like!

After the Wall, we went to a factory where they make copper and enamel pottery (I can't remember what it is called...I will have to look it up later). I could not believe how intricate the copper work was! We watched a couple of artists create and I can say they are VERY patient people!

Old Beijing was pretty neat, too. We rode in rickshaws to visit a local family and see their house. It was typical of homes in Beijing where 3-5 people live together. It was about 100 square feet (the size of our bedroom) and did not even contain a bathroom. There are public baths on each street that everyone shares. I can not even imagine waking up at 3 am and having to go down the street to use the toilet! It was fun to see how local people live, though. Now I know why our airport escort thought our house was a villa!

Also at the house, the niece was working on glass bottle painting. She actually paints inside of these teeny-tiny bottles. It was gorgeous work. She let me and Hannah try it...I kinda of made a heart and Hannah made a deformed smiley-face. Trust me, it was harder than she made it look!

We had our first chinese meal this afternoon. It was a group meal with our tour. We all sat at this huge round table with a lazy suzan in the middle that was crammed with plates of food...sweet and sour chicken, peanut chicken, vegetables in suace, ham and beef slices, dumplings, and fish (whole with head and eyes still intact). It was delicious. Unfortunately, one couple had already experienced stomach problems, so they barely ate more than rice. Made me wonder if we will be in their shoes sometime soon!

Check out some more pics of our day along the side of the page. We will make slide show links as soon as we are not too tired to spend time figuring it out!