Beijing

This may be the last post from Asia.  We left Bangkok at 1am on Friday April 18th.  That Thursday as we were packing up to leave the hotel, I realized that the next 2 nights we would be sleeping on an airplane and still arriving home on Friday April 18th.  I think I have a basic understanding of timezones, but adding in the international date line is a step up in the math requirements.  Thankfully there is an app that will tell you what time it is at home.  Anyways....

We only had a 9.5 hour layover in Beijing so we decided to hire a driver and head out to the Great Wall.  Laura had been to Beijing twice before so she had done the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, and all the knock off shopping before.

Once we arrived we took a ski-lift up to the top of the wall.  Thank goodness we didn't walk.

 A quick selfie on the way up.  Notice we are bundled up.  We would later regret hauling all those jackets up to the top of the mountain.

 The mountain was pretty cloudy and prevented great pictures, but you can certainly see the size and scale of the wall.

 Our flight landed at 6:30am so we were able to get there pretty early and take pictures like this without a lot of other tourists in the pictures.

 I am not sure that these pictures show how steep the stairs were.

An impressive view.

 I think this picture gives a slight indication of how steep it was.  Imagine climbing a ladder with around 1000 rungs.  Thank goodness our guide convinced us to go to the "flatter" section of the wall.

 Sweating pretty good making it up to the top.

 We did get a stranger to take our picture.  Oddly enough that person was wearing an UNC tarheel shirt despite not having attended the university.

 The cool part about this particular piece of the wall is that there was a toboggan run that would take you back down the side of the mountain.

 Certain parts were pretty steep and the curves were pretty fun.  If we had enough time and money, I think I could have done this all day.

A quick video of the way down.  There was a family in front of us and their tour guide was pretty scared going down and caused a bit of a back up going down the hill.  But you can get an idea of how fun it was from this quick clip.

After that it was time for a quick shower in the airport lounge and some flights to get home.  On the 13 hour flight from Beijing to Houston we had the entire first class cabin to our selves.  That meant we each had our own flight attendant and our own bathroom.  I can honestly say that the flights we had were amazing.  I think I got a solid 8 hours of sleep on this flight, watched 3 movies, 2 great meals, and a bottle of champagne.  Laura is going to hate flying coach on her next trip to China.

A beautiful sunset on the descent down into Charlotte.