Saturday 19 September

We have to be ready by 6:30 to leave for the Great Wall. I wake around five kind of anxious but fall asleep again once I realise the time. The trip by private bus takes about 2 hours. It's lovely scenery and there isn't much traffic. We take a shuttle to the base, receive a brief history of the wall and then have options of walking up or taking a cable car. We walk. It's lots of stairs and I'm slow. The last in our group to the top. The view from the wall is amazing. As far as you can see in any direction is mountains tops. I didn't remember coming in through mountains! The wall used to be about 20000km. Building starting 500BC. Built to keep nomads and Mongols out. This is a short restored section made with bricks. A lot was made with mud etc and is now disintegrated and ruins. The wall is surprisingly steep and it's quite a walk. We don't see it all but get an idea of what it's like. Plus awesome photos. We walk to the path going down and chairlift and chute. I'm glad we came early. We were the first bus there. Now there are heaps of ppl. I take the stairs and Malcolm the chute. My legs feel like jelly so I sit awhile then check out the rock museum which is very nice and pretty with gardens and waterfalls. We then rejoin the group and eat some lunch while we await everyone to rejoin. Back on the bus it's nice to relax but it's a long slow trip back with much more traffic and many traffic issues. At least the view is so nice. Back at the hotel we spend a quiet afternoon. Trying to figure if there is a good free VPN that will work for us here. And thankfully we do! Well kind of. They are a bit iffy.
We shower and get ready to go out for dinner. We FaceTime dad and he's getting ready for bed. We end up catching the bus then walking a ways. To Alice's tea house. It's delicious fresh food and then a round of teas. I'm exhausted by the time we are done. We say our goodbyes to the group then walk to the subway and back to the hotel. It's so lit up and ppl still out and about. I'm happy to relax in bed.