Beijing Again

We arrived in Beijing at 7:15 a.m. and had a quick KFC breakfast then 9 of us plus our wonderful guide loaded on a bus for the Great Wall.  The drive took almost 1.5 hours but boy was it worth it. Have you ever thought "I would like to see that one day" and then wonder if it will be all it is made out to be when you arrive?  Well, it was AMAZING, WONDERFUL, BREATHTAKING, and so much more to stand on the top of the Great Wall of China and see it go on and on into the distance.  What an achievement!  We had a stunning day of fairly warm weather, beautiful clear skies, and no wind.  We all had to take off layers to keep from overheating.  And since it is winter, the tourists were almost non-existent.  We could sit on stretched of the wall and not even see another group for 10 or 15 minutes.  We stayed for a couple hours and took a ton of pictures.

Then we went to a Hot Pot lunch which consisted of two large pots of boiling water with chimney type metal structures in the center that contained charcoal to keep the water boiling.  Into that we dumped various meats, vegies, and tofu to cook.  It was pretty neat...kinda like fondu...Mongolian style.  This was developed by the mongols after they came to invade China.  They didn't have enough food to eat so they killed their horses and cut them up for food.  They wore metal helmets which they removed and used to boil water and cook the meat.  Thus Mongolian Hot Pot was invented.

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped in the Hutong (old) district of Beijing and went on rickshaw rides through the back streets.  We learned some more about the Chinese houses and how you can tell the class standing of a family just by looking at the steps and above the door leading into the houses.  I will write more about this later, but we are heading to breakfast and another day of sightseeing.  We leave for home tomorrow morning but will try to post again tonight beforehand.

Can't wait to share pictures with you DD and Mom!