Beijing, China - The Great Wall

We had a few things on our itinerary for our quick trip to China, the biggest was The Great Wall. We took a day tour that fed us a traditional Chinese lunch, a tour of a jade and silk factory and to the Heavenly Way Entrance to the Ming Tombs.

We took a tour an hour outside of the city to avoid the mass amounts of tourists and it was well worth it. We were able to freely climb the wall without being in anyone's way. We climbed an incredibly steep area that went into an unmaintained portion of the wall where the vegetation was overgrown and the wall has deteriorated. It was a surreal experience to actually be there. In that area the steep hike just to get up to the wall is about 45 minutes so they offer a ski lift to get up to the wall and an alpine slide to come back down.