The Great Wall & Leaving Beijing

We're awake.

It's 2:30 in the morning for us but it might as well be noon. In a couple of hours we have to be packed, downstairs and on the bus for a ride to the airport. We leave Beijing this morning to fly to Alyzabeth's home city of Chongqing.
That pretty much explains why we're awake...

Yesterday was another adventure packed day highlighted by our trip to The Great Wall. We made a couple of scheduled pit stops along the way or should that be buying stops. Actually, the stops worked well for us as we had planned to purchased a few "future" birthday gifts for Alyzabeth.
At the Jade Factory we bought a bangle bracelet for Alyzabeth and followed that up with a stop at a Cloisonne Factory where we purchased another bangle bracelet along with a pair of earrings. At each stop your group is given a guided tour by a factory employee. The tours really are interesting and educational and you are literally standing right beside the folks doing the work. Pretty bizarre :)
Everything was so tempting! Watch your wallets!!

Then it was on to The Great Wall. Very imposing. Very impressive. And a bear to climb!!! We were soaking wet after climbing up what seemed to be miles! The view was spectacular but oh did it expose just how out of shape we are :) Coming down was no small feat what with our legs being so tired but we did it and now we can say we walked The Great Wall of China!!! Even if it did about kill us :)


Standard disclaimer on the video snippet. As before, I'm not editing the FLIP videos though they desperately need to be. To save time we're just pushing them out to family and friends so you can enjoy this amazing trip with us! We'll polish them up later :) Thanks for letting us slide on this. We've appreciated your comments letting us know that's cool...

That's it. Talk and post with you all later.
Tomorrow we get Alyzabeth...
Life is good.
peace
ac & fm