It is a GREAT WALL!

sooooooooooooooo we did it! we climbed the Great Wall - and we bought a T-shirt to prove it :) It really is incredible to see this Wall winding through the mountains many kilometres before we arrived at Badaling. After we got to our destination we stopped and saw a few bears in cave-type below the ground enclosures. We fought our way through the vendors, paid for the roller-coaster like ride to take us part way up the wall to the section we started to climb from. We got off the ride and climed to the highest section. I know you are thinking we are wimps - however, our 2 older kids (11 & 9)didn't complain very much, my 70 year old mom did not complain at all :) and my husband didn't mention the fact that he walked up very uneven, steep stone steps for about 45 minutes with a 5 year old on his shoulders. I think we were troupers! The scenery was beautiful and the fact that this wall was made so many centuries ago is pretty mind boggling. We have some amazing photos and were very blessed with beautiful weather. The sun was shining and we realized when we got to the top and got our picture taken for our "I climbed the Great Wall" certificate (did I mention it was a teensy bit commercialized?) that we did this on Leap Year! How fun.

I was most proud of my purchase of a $4 Jade bracelet that I assumed was glass - because we had just been at the Jade factory and priced the bracelets at $300 dollars and up. The guide looked at it and said it is Jade, but just not a very nice piece as it had a flaw - I was happy with the price even if it had been glass!

We had to do a Cloissone factory shop stop on the way back and it was actually very nice. We only bought a few ornaments but everything was beautiful and it was a low pressure experience so that was great. We ended the day by going to a grocery store and had a lot of fun looking at all the interesting and different food & snacks.

At the end of the day I asked the kids if they enjoyed the Great Wall and if they thought it was awesome, Jonah's answer was - "Mom it was a great day but I came to China for one purpose and that is to get my baby sister!" (did I pay him to say that? - NO!) yes we are excited to meet Tia in 2 or 3 days.

I promise I will try to post some photos soon, just google Great Wall and photoshop us in for now :)

Cheers! from Beijing - home of the "I climbed the Great Wall t-shirt"! (and the $4 Jade bracelet!)

Thanks for all your comments, I loved reading them!

Ellie