The Great Wall

July 1, which was Thursday was our first day of sightseeing with the "group". We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, met a number of the families and loaded onto a comfortable well air conditioned bus. Before we started out for The Great Wall we stopped at the Jade Factory, and it was really a trip to shop. Herb is convinced that the only way a tour guide gets his license in China is to commit to take tourists to a number of state run gift shops that are also "factories" We did buy a few trinkets, but not the $600 bangles they were pushing!

As we drove to the Great Wall it started to rain. It was raining when we got there and bought the .50 rain coats they were selling at the entrance. This is one part of the Great Wall, call Mutianya which has a Cable Car that takes you about 20% of the way up and then you can climb as far as you want. We all climbed for about 40 minutes and then turned around. The kids enjoyed it and hammed it up for pictures. There were amazing sight.

Above is where you come down from the wall and they sell all the trinkets and you have to bargain like crazy. For instance, Ben wanted a Great Wall Hat - They started at 280 yuans. We ended up at 50 yuans and was told by Nancy that we should have paid about 15. 100 yuans is about $15. And we thought we got a deal! The cable cars were fun and fast.

I The cable cars were fun. I have no idea why I am now in blue font and underlining, but I can't make it go away - so just bear with me. Hannah and I are leaving for an acrobatic show in 10 minutes and I am trying to get this posted. After tonight it may be 2 or 3 days before we have connectivity - we are sleeping on an overnight train to Xian Saturday night. Below is our group. We took some fabulous shots of all the kids today but I don't think they will get posted till Monday or so!

Loading up at the cloisonne factory. If you look at the pictures below, I really think the idea of a factory is shattered. These look like rooms out of 200 years ago with ladies laboring with almost no light and horrible conditions. It was very strange to watch them making the cloisonne because it was almost impossible to fatham that these ladies were making these probably 7 days a week, and who knows how many hours a day. Needless to say, I felt obligated to shop. So we bought a few things. Ok, I will put the cloisonne pictures in another post. something is very challenging here!

It was raining when Herb took these - Ben refused to wear the fashionable raincoat - he preferred getting wet.

Yes, I can take pictures Mom - here is Herb and the kids. I would take more, but Herb is a much better photographer and it is hard to wrestle the camera out of his hands.