Saturday Snapshot

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy. 

May 2009 - Beijing China

I've been posting our trip to China (out of sequence) that have inspired me to look back at our trip to China. Our trip was before I started blogging our travels.

Boarding our river cruise.
Laundry Day
Signs
Arriving in Beijing Day 1

Dining on the River Li

Tiananmen Square Day 2

Forbidden City Day 2

Temple of Heaven Day 2

Hutong  Day 3 morning

After lunch and our tour of the hutong, we headed to the Great Wall of China!!

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China in part to protect the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or forces. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall are from the Ming Dynasty.

This was a really exciting moment for us all! Once you park you can either walk (no) to the Wall or take a funicular. It was a very hot humid day as we climbed our way past the vendors flogging everything Chinese.

Someone's not that keen on heights!

My favourite photo - first view of the wall. A little smoggy.

Back down among the modern day sellers.