We headed out around 8.30 am and the roads were fairly busy with everyone heading to work and school. Normally the people don’t work on Sunday but the 1st of May is a special public holiday here and so everyone can have a 4 day break next weekend the Government said that people would need to go to work and school today (Sunday) so they could take an extra day off next weekend to have a 4 day break! Like to see the Australian Government do that! We were heading to the Great Wall of China today. On our way we called into a Jade factory and learnt all about this stone and saw craftsmen carving some pieces. The gallery was full of magnificent jade artworks but we decided that they were a little too heavy to put in our bags. (They were definitely out of our price range too.) Continuing on to the Great wall we noticed that the sky was not blue. There had not been any rain predicted for today so as we headed into the mountains we thought the haze was a combination of mist and pollution. The wall was everything we thought it would be. Magnificent! We all managed to walk quite a way up the steep steps to enjoy both the history and the views. My “Fitbit” said I walked the equivalent of 84 flights of steps! After all this exertion we were taken back to the Jade Factory. On the second storey of this building there was a large restaurant which is sponsored by the government and is for tourists. We had a lovely meal and there was probably about 200 tourists in the building. After lunch we visited the 700 year old “Hutong” district of Beijing. We were taken on a tour of this area in an old fashioned pedicab and finished the day with a delicious home-cooked dinner in the home of one of the residents.
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