The Great Wall & Hutongs

Today was an incredible and exhausting day. Well exhausting for those of us who are not three years old. Elizabeth is swimming in the indoor pool at the moment after a day that started at 5 a.m. with no nap. We left the hotel at 8:30 this morning and headed to the Juyongguan section of the wall. I was somewhat relieved to discover there were no cable cars at this particular section since I am never thrilled to ride in them. Of course after hiking up the steep stairs to three of the towers and back down I was missing the small box hanging from the cable. Amazingly Elizabeth made it all that way with us. Chris did carry her part of the way up and most of the way down, but she had stamina to spare. We were taken to lunch at The Friendship Store where we learned about the painstaking process of cloisonne. When lunch was over we again boarded the bus and drove to one of the preserved older sections of Beijing to ride in rickshaws and visit with a local woman
who proudly showed off her home to us and served us tea. What an experience!