January 11, 2007

From our hotel in downtown Beijing to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is a two hour drive, which was good because Alyssa is still not feeling well and didn't want to get out of bed. Since we had such a long drive I was able to dope her up with some ibuprofen and she slept most of the way there. I felt bad about dragging her along, but there was no way I was leaving her alone in a hotel room in China two hours away from where I would be.

I checked out her mouth and throat with a flashlight and her soft palate and mouth are covered in canker sores. It's no wonder she can't eat! She has some on her lips this morning as well. The poor kid...I counted and she has 18 total!

Our transportation this time is what unfortunately appears to be a private vehicle rather than a van owned by China International Travel Service. It is a Mercedes-Benz van and the driver is Mr. Meticulous with white covers over the tops of his chair backs. Not good when you are traveling with young children. I think my stress level will be rather high on this trip as I worry about what the kids might get on his pristine seats.

We chose the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall rather than the Badaling section because Mutianyu has fewer tourists. It's a bit further away from Beijing, but we wanted to go to a section that wasn't packed with people. Little did we know that this time of year, there would be virtually no tourists! We only ran into about 10 other people the whole time we were there. I guess that's what happens when you go in the dead of winter rather than springtime or fall.

Mutianyu is steeper than the Badaling section, and also is not near the road, so you have to either hike up to the wall, or take a cable car or chair lift. I would have preferred the cable car, but only the chair lift takes you to a place where you can toboggan back down, so chair lift it was. It's exactly like a chair lift that you would use when snowskiing. Call me a paranoid mother, but I was a nervous wreck the whole time worrying that Micheline could just slip out from under the bar in front of us. She kept wanting to turn around and wave to Alyssa behind us and it was freaking me out as I held tightly to her jacket.

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