Part 1
Part 2



The views were nice, but sadly nothing like the beautiful greens that are here in the summertime. Instead, all the trees are dead looking and grey. Taylor enjoyed messing around and saying things like "Mongols advancing to the North!" I would have enjoyed climbing much higher than we did, but with young ones and Alyssa ill, we decided to turn back.

To say that the vendors at the wall are aggressive would be an understatement. They think nothing of grabbing at your clothes if you show any interest in their products, and there are even a few vendors up on the wall itself where they have spread out a very small blanket with a few sodas, water and snacks that they try to sell you.

The hghlight of the day for the kids was the toboggan ride back down. You hike back down to where you got off the chairlift and then can get on a toboggan that has a handle you can pull back on to brake. It goes down a metal chute down the mountain and when you brake, little pads drop down to drag on the chute. Of course Taylor wanted to go first so he could go as fast as possible even though there are men posted along the way down yelling out to you in Chinese to slow down. There are also signs posted in both Chinese and English for you to slow down every time you come to a sharp curve. Taylor took the video camera with him and turned it on as he came down so maybe we will have some Olympic type footage!



Ben and Caleb spent half their time on the Great Wall begging to slide back down, so they were pretty happy when we finally got back down to the point where they could board the toboggans. Micheline went down with Jeff but all the other kids went down on their own.




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