Field trip in Beijing

Trip to Mutianyu section of Great Wall of China!

Aunt Suzie and Elly riding the chair lift to the Great Wall!

Yeah, they were skipping along as Lisa and I were huffing and puffing behind!  It was a steep climb!

Vendors selling beer, water and Snickers!!  They were offering the kids beer!  We never allow beer before noon!

Photos don't do it justice!

I see a Mongolian!

The winding vistas were incredible!

As we were sweating and wheezing, our guide "Ellen," took out a sweater!!!?

A sport? Hmmmmmmmm

Rule #1 - no photography on the ride! :)

Aunt Suzie took the warnings seriously and went really slowly - much to the disgust of the riders behind her!!

Every morning, Lewie asks "so what's our field trip for today?" Woooohooo, did 
we have a good one today! 
Yesterday, I asked the front desk if they arranged day trips. Silly me, OF 
COURSE they do!!! We went to a section of the Great Wall called Mutianyu, where 
you can go to the top of the wall on a chair lift and down on a tobaggan!! Our 
guide was "Ellen," a young woman who works for the government by day and is a 
tour guide on the weekends.  When we started off, I asked her if she had another 
job or if she was a full time tour guide.  She said she was a government worker 
but the way she pronounced it, we all thought she said "garment" worker! So we 
all, independently, are thinking, "garment worker? Who has to travel the world 
for her job? Huh?". But we all figured it out! 
We got to the wall in about an hour and a half and got right to the climbing!  
Lisa and I nearly had heart failure going to the top but the kids just ran up 
like it was nothing! It was just stunning and I hope the pictures I took will do 
it justice! Elizabeth, being from Inner Mongolia, was quite put off by the fact 
that the wall was built to keep out the Mongolians and we took every opportunity 
to tease her about it!  The walk back down was just as bad!  Well, almost as 
bad!  Oh, I forgot to mention the incredible trip up on a chairlift- just 
beautiful, magnificent views. The highlight for the kids was yet to come! We 
rode tobaggans down a track that was hilarious.  Everyone had their own and 
could control how fast or slow to go with a lever.  Lewie was behind me yelling 
"faster, Mom!" as we whizzed down.  I was thinking how lucky we were to be able 
to experience something like this.  It was so much fun!  Even Aunt Suzie rode on 
one but was mad at the 
 people behind her, yelling at her to go faster! 
After our adventure, we stopped to eat lunch and were "only" served 8 platters 
of food! You know, I don't like that my ipad doesn't have spell check because I 
know I'm going to butcher this word- we next went to a Cloissane ?? "factory" 
that was pretty sad looking - people sitting in little rooms, working on pieces. 
We had more questions to ask Ellen but she fell asleep on the way back!! 
It was a great field trip! 
Love 
Barbara