The Great Wall

Today was such an awesome day!! A long day, but so much fun! We headed out to the Great Wall with one other family and our guide. Our guide is so sweet and has given us so much information about China. Almost too much at times...its hard to take in the amount of info she was giving us on the bus to the Great Wall! But she really has been wonderful!

This was my second time to climb the Great Wall but I was so excited to do it again with Jeff.  We were quite ambitious and climbed to what we thought was the top. But it was just a trick...it was the top, but only the top part that we could see...once we got up to the look out tower, there was much more to keep climbing. At that point we had a pretty good leg workout and needed to meet up with our guide for lunch so we headed back down the steep steps. It was pretty cold out but after we got going and we were climbing straight up at times, we were starting to shed some layers. We then left for lunch. It is hard to explain this place but on the bottom level there was a factory like place that made hand made vases made with copper. It was very detailed work they did and they were beautiful. Then there was a huge store to buy touristy stuff and the restaurant was upstairs. The food was pretty Americanized Chinese food. Our guide said she was going to eat with the bus driver which we thought was weird. We later found out that she just said she didn't really like the Americanized Chinese food! :)

We obviously took lots of pictures so here are just a few!

This is the sign that says..."You are not a hero until you climb the Great Wall of China" 

This was the copper vases. You can see the detail that goes into making those designs with little pieces of copper.