Forbidden City and Great Wall

Hi Everyone,

We had a very full day today. We left the hotel at 8:30 am and did not return until ~6:30 pm. We are both pretty tired and we still have to pack-up our stuff to fly to Guangzhou tomorrow. So this post is going to be short.

Pictured below is our travel group at Tianamen Square and a picture of Wim and I in front of Mao’s picture. It is a pretty big place.

Next are some pictures of us at the Forbidden City. It is huge! We spent the better part of the morning touring it. It is massive, but from my Western eye, after you walk around for about an hour, it all pretty much looks the same. It is like a great big maze on the inside.

We had lunch at the Friendship Store located somewhat close to the Great Wall. We were able to tour a Cloisonné factory here. This was the same sort of factory as the Porcelain factory we visited yesterday; meaning mostly artisans crafting their goods, but more workers than where we visited yesterday. The vases were very pretty, but at this point, we don’t have luggage space for the flight tomorrow so we decided not to purchase any. Perhaps we will have another opportunity in GZ.

Lastly, we made it to the Great Wall of China. It was later in the day than what had been planned and we only had about 1 ½ hours to climb to the top. This is considered up to the 7th Tower. Good thing I’ve been working out on the stair climber at the gym! The Wall is an amazing sight! To be honest, I would have preferred to have had more time to explore, contemplate, and simply hang-out here than spent as much time as we did at the Forbidden City.

I have no idea why this happens to some of the pictures-- this is showing sideways. Is it posting like this to the blog? It looks fine on the computer, but then changes when I upload it here.

I had another photo of the GW loaded, but it seems to have disappeared. It takes awhile for these to load and I am pretty much done. I'll try to load some more next time.


On the LONG bus ride back to the hotel, our guide talked about our flights to GZ tomorrow afternoon and what will happen over the next couple days when we meet and assume care of our babies. We are very excited, but am now feeling tired when I am suppose to and could drop any moment.

I doubt that we will post tomorrow. We will try to post Monday (Beijing time) after we return to our room with Josie. This will likely be a short note and picture or two.

Love to all of you,
Reena and Wim