The Great Wall

Well, another day down before we get our Junie.

I started this day exceptionally early, 2:00 A.M. to be exact. When I woke up, I felt like it must be close to morning so turned on my flashlight and started reading. After a while I checked my watch and was surprised to see that it was actually the middle of the night still. I was unable to get back to sleep and David woke up just a little while after me. So, forgive me once again if this is incoherent!

We also woke this morning to see that my email address was hijacked (sorry to you ALL in my address book!) and David spent tons of time trying to get the spyware on the laptop and fix it. We've already had a lot of trouble with it since we've been here and I'm just hoping it holds up till Gotcha Day so we can Skype with the kids- with Junie.

We met our guide, Ivy, in the lobby at 9:00 and drove 1 1/2 hours to the Great Wall (Mutianyu area). The entire way there we kept commenting on the sky and how it looked like it was just going to pour buckets and that we wouldn't be able to see much of anything at the Great Wall. BUT, when we got there, it cleared up a bit and was just fine.

We decided to walk up and tobaggan down. We had NO idea how intense the climb would be, my quads were shaking by the time we got up to the top and we were both sweating buckets. But, HOLY MOLY was it worth it! I simply do not have the words for the Great Wall. The only word is indescribable. We walked and walked and each and every vista was just more breathtaking than the next. I took a gazillion pictures but the sky was a little grey and the pictures simply cannot do it justice.

After a while, we took the tobaggan down. Another experience I will never forget as it was so unique and so so fun! David was behind me and told me at one point to "get a little extreme" as we could control our speed and he wanted to go faster. When it started going, it got fast and I felt the experience was going by me too fast. It is hard to tobaggan down the mountain away from the Great Wall of China at an extreme speed while appreciating the beauty at the same time. I was torn! But I finally surrendured to my need for speed- and it was so fun!.