China Trip Day 3: The Great Wall

 Yesterday, we rented a van and traveled to the Great Wall. It took a little over two hours to get there, which was a bit more car time than the girls would have liked, but it was definitely worth it! We went to an area of the Great Wall that is a little less popular than the area typically visited by tourists in Beijing, and because of what time of year it is, it was not crowded at all.

When we arrived, we took a bus from the ticketing office up to a higher area of the wall. And then we began to walk! Here are some views from the top.

We explored some of the watch towers along the wall.

We learned that there are old and "new" sections of the wall, as you can see below, though both sections are thousands of years old.

Some parts of the wall were very steep, and didn't always have stairs. A few areas were a bit frightening, both for kids and grown ups!

All in all, we walked about 3 kilometers on the wall, and it took us about three hours. It was not an easy walk at all, but definitely worth it! 

After returning to the apartment, we took the subway to a local Korean BBQ restaurant for dinner. The subway let us out into a large shopping mall. We were all pretty tired, but really enjoyed dinner. We especially enjoyed seeing the large 3D screen on the outside of the mall.