Beijing - Great Wall

 Zǎo shàng hǎo! (‘zao’ is ‘z’+'ow’ with a descending then rising tone; ‘shang’ is ‘sh’+'ong’ descending tone; ‘hao’ is ‘how’ with descending then rising tone) or Good Morning!  Everyone had a great sleep last night and started getting up around 6 am. We have a very busy day planned in Beijing today.

Agenda is the see the Great Wall of China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China), Olympic Stadium, maybe the Great Canal (also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal - longest artificial river in the world), Tiananman Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square) and Forbidden City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City) today.

First we are going to head up to breakfast, before we head out on a full day of activities.

To Dad's disappointment the Starbucks in the lobby didn't open until 10:00 AM on the weekends, I guess we are supposed to sleep in...lol

The car service picked us up out front of the hotel at 9:00 AM. The first thing on the agenda was hit an open Starbucks. Everyone got there favorite drink and it was off to the Olympic Station.

Traffic in Beijing wasn't too bad this early in the morning and it took about 20 min to get to our destination. Olympic Stadium or now called "National Stadium Bird's Nest" was the host to the famous opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Summer Games (http://www.olympic.org/beijing-2008-summer-olympics).

Our trip will take us through 3 cities that have hosted or will host the Olympic games, Beijing - 2008, Athens - 2004, Rio - 2016.

Each child wanted their picture taken at the gate that represented their name.
A - Abey

J - Jacob

K - Kristen

It is hard not to see with all the smoke in Beijing, but the tower in the background has the Olympic rings on top...

The wall with the concrete Olympic rings has everyone's name who medalled, the sport in which they medalled and the color of their medal. Kids really enjoyed looking for Canadian and American athletes names.

Kristen believed she won gold in the fashionista competition....Jacob was happy with bronze in this category!

Jacob was impressed with the Olympic Torch where the flame burned brightly in the Summer of '08.

Kristen, "Dad is this where they had the boat races?" - nope river too small.

Dad - Kristen this is the Dragon Shaped River...per the sign!

Official Bird's Nest Stadium...

After a quick bio break, it was off to the next destination - Great Wall of China! We arrived around lunch time. We purchased our tickets which included a chair lift (like at a ski hill) to the main platform and a toboggan ride back down. It is the same location that I came too 12 yrs ago...

We headed west which was the wall you can see in the background. Unfortunately for us, it was all uphill...and it was steep. Here is Abey and Kristen at the starting point.

 Kristen, Abey and Jacob getting ready for our journey up the wall.

 As you can see, it goes straight up...

 We arrived at the first guard shack, where soldiers protected the homeland from invader's from the North.

Here are the kids on the roof of the guard shack...looking out over the empire. The kid's are amazed at how far the wall goes...you can see the wall off in the distant peek.

 Jacob, descending the stairs, not a lot of room...

After a quick vote, we continue upward...1 guard house, 2 guard houses, 3 guard houses......I think we are done! After each guard house, we stop, cool down and get a drink of water....

 Jacob and Kristen atop Guard House 3....

Not all sections of the Wall are open to the public, some sections are closed for safety reasons....We actually made it to the end of the trail...

Look at the ascent we did getting to Guard House 3....

You can see in the bottom left corner where we started....

If you are scared of heights then walking the wall isn't your cup of green tea!

Kristen and Jacob on our descent back down to guard house 1

Dad, Jacob and Kristen arriving at Guard House 2...

Jacob, Abey, Kristen pointing to the Guard House we walked up to, you can see the peak of the house in the middle of the photo....Dad got his exercise today! The Great Wall of China is amazing. It is unbelievable to imagine what people sacrificed in order to build the wall to protect their country.

A plaque explains the history of the Great Wall....

Here is a close up of the upper and lower portion of the plaque.

Jacob, Abey and Kristen giving me the scary Dragon look!

So we had to return on the toboggan...it was awesome. The attached video will give you some sense of the fun the kids had....I have tried to edit it so you can't here Kristen yelling at Dad to go faster...like that has ever been an issue...Unfortunately folks in front of Dad were individuals who were not as adventurist as the McLeod family....


Great Wall Toboggan Ride Down

So we arrived at the bottom of the hill and a few photo's have been included of the history of the location. The 610th Anniversary of this area of the wall, amazing!

Toboggan Ride - Down

Chair Lift Ride - Upward

Here is Dad back in 2001, the year Jacob was born on the Great Wall with Peter Power...Dad was working in China for Arthur Andersen....Similar hair line, but a few (lol) lbs lighter...

So we arrived back at the hotel and I asked the kids what would they like for dinner?  Well Jacob has been doing some research on the computer and found out that "Pappa John's Pizza" is sold in Beijing! Guess what the kids and I quote "kids" had for dinner? You got it, half way around the world and they are eating Pizza, Cheesy Bread, Nuggets and Wings!

Can you image Dad at the concierge desk at the Park Hyatt Beijing, getting them to order Pizza...must be American! I on the other hand got a traditional Chinese meal. 

We watched "Surfer Girl" and now it bed time....

Wǎn ān ! (‘wan’ is ‘w’+'on’ with a descending then rising tone; ‘an’ is ‘on’ with a sustained tone) or Good Night!