Mother's Day at the Great Wall

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Wow, what an amazing Mother's Day we have had. To quote mum, "This has to be the most memorable Mother's Day ever!" We were up and out by 7am and our driver took us up to MutianYu, a part of the Great Wall which we had been recommended by several friends. It was a chilly yet sunny start to the day but well worth emerging from our beds super early. It is a national holiday called Qing Ming - this is when the Chinese traditionally go and sweep the tombs of their loved ones. Of course, a national holiday in China means huge amounts of people, but our early start meant our trip to the wall was reasonably peaceful. After a short trip in a cable car up to the wall, we managed to get mum up to be standing on the Great Wall of China! The steps and slopes were really steep, so mum decided to take a sit down in the sunshine while we ventured onwards and upwards. We returned about an hour later, having trekked up as high as we could managed (462 steps up and down again in the last section alone gave us extremely jelly legs!) and collected mum from her spot in the sun. Amazingly, there was a Subway amongst all the touristy shacks and stalls and it was well needed, we were all starving!

It was still only 11.30am and we had 'done' the Great Wall, so we carried on to visit the Temple of Heaven. This is a huge park, with a group of buildings and temples in the middle. It had beautiful architecture and decoration and was a great example of a peaceful Chinese park even on a national holiday. We sat eating ice creams watching the children run around in the exercise area for at least an hour. They were among a large amount of older people doing their exercises and we were quite enthralled at their suppleness and ability to exercise!

After this, we were in much need of a Starbucks, which was quite easy to find, being China, and carried on to the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. We had been recommended to see these at dusk as the lights were incredible, but we were a bit early. We ended up staying for ages to ensure we saw the lights and as the sun went down, it became rather chilly indeed. We can hardly complain, though, as we had temperatures of up to 20 degrees and were really basking in the vitamin d! Desperately hungry, we quickly enjoyed the lights and dashed for our car who zoomed us off to a place called The Village. I had read about it in Time Out magazine, but perhaps it would be better explored when everyone is not cold, tired and hungry! We did discover a lovely Italian restaurant where we all devoured our food and ran for the car to take us home! Exhausted but extremely well-cultured and satisfied, we are downloading our photos and enjoying the zillion photos we took...we hope you enjoy them too.....another story will follow tomorrow.

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