Mom and I made our way to Beijing to explore the city for just two days and believe me when I say that we packed as much into our two days as we possibly could! We signed up for a tour because we figured that it would be a little easier with an expert guiding us around the city so that we could do it all and not have to worry about transportation and whatnot. The first day, we were picked up at our hotel at 7:00 am by our guide, Jenny. We loaded onto a bus with 10 other expats from the US, New Zealand and Italy and rode all over the city beginning with The Ming Tombs - a series of 13 tombs from the emperors of the Qing Dynasty - and we saw the biggest of the 13, the tomb of Chingli. It was interesting enough, but to be honest, I was too excited for the Great Wall. We made friends with a single traveler from New Zealand named Victor. He was outgoing and kind and he spent the entire day traveling the city with my mom and I (did I mention that he was extremely cute)! We lucked out with perfect warm, sunny weather and blue clouds! I have been told that the polution and smog in Beijing is so much worse than Shanghai, but the air quality almost seemed better than Shanghai for the couple days that we were there :]
Following the Tomb, we headed to Jade Factory to watch how jade is produced (a huge product of China), then we had a Chinese lunch at the Jade Factory. Then finally we headed to the Wall. Honestly, no words can really explain how incredible the Great Wall was and photos will never do it justice! Nonetheless, it was amazing! We took a cable car up the side of the mountain that dropped us off next to the wall at the BaDaLing Section so that we could walk along the wall and explore on our own. Of course, my mom was freaking out the whole cable car ride, but she was pretty brave once we got to the top. Victor and I took off and began running to the top. We ran up to one peak, then back to down look for my mom. When we couldn't find her, we ran back up and then down another side of the peak. When it was time to go back, we ran back up to the peak and then back down.
The Wall was absolutely MASSIVE and incredibly beautiful! It stretched out throughout the mountains, curving, waving and bending up and down and all over. Parts of the wall were just flat cement but step so it was difficult to walk up or down, and the parts that were stairs were broken, and uneven - one step would be just a couple inches high and the next two feet tall... anyway, just amazing!
(standing on the highest peak of BaDaLing)
(with our friend Victor)
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