The Great Wall

   

 We started out our day with a trip to the Great Wall.  The Great Wall is just a short 1 hour drive from Beijing. We arrived around 10 am and began our adventure hiking and climbing the wall.  I think we were all surprised at how very steep most of the wall is.  It was definitely a challenge! And going down was just as hard as going up.  Once again, it was absolutely packed with people.  Mostly Chinese, with a few foreign visitors sprinkled in.  It's amazing how many Chinese nationals are out enjoying their historical sites- even on a weekday. 

     On the way back into Beijing we stopped at a tea shop for a demonstration of a Chinese tea ceremony.  We enjoyed an assortment of teas, as well as time to browse the shop. We continued our busy day with a quick stop at the site of the Olympic Park.  We saw, close up,  the iconic Birds Nest stadium,  Water Cube, and the giant hotel complex in the shape of a dragon.

     While everything is beautiful,  we will have a new appreciation for the clean air we enjoy at home, after spending a third day under smoggy, hazy skies that obscure the sun on a daily basis.

     Finally, we took an exciting ride in a caravan of rickshaws to our dinner experience.  The ride afforded us an inside look at a neighborhood we might never have a chance to see again. In this "Hutong" neighborhood, narrow paths carve out a neighborhood of multi-family houses which share a courtyard and communal bathroom.  At the end of our mini-tour we enjoyed a home cooked meal in the home of a local family.  It was delicious meal, prepared by a most gracious cook, in a kitchen about the size of a powder room.  After thanking our hosts, we walked past the historic drum and bell tours, boarded our bus, and continued  back to our hotel for some much needed rest.