The Great Wall of China

Yes.. yes that is a winter wonderland and we are in China and at the Great Wall in 3 degrees!!
Matt booked a private driver and an English speaking guide through China Highlights website which was around £80 a head and it was worth every penny. They picked us up from our hotel and it took over 2 hours to get up to the wall (there was a Chinese holiday that Thursday so it was BUSY!) but the wall itself was not very busy which was good - The Forbidden City queues on our way out of the city were another story though! The tickets were also included in the price and the cable car to the top where the wall was and back down which I would thoroughly recommend. And lastly included was a Chinese dinner at a Chinese restaurant down the road too. We were at the Mutianyu part of the wall which was recommended to us by people at school. 

After getting the tickets where you park, you get on a shuttle bus up to the base camp as it were of the wall! Here you go through a village place with food, souvenirs and most importantly GLOVES!! It was pretty chilly and these were a great buy!

The walk up to the cable car was very picturesque and I couldn't quite believe only days ago it was nearly 30 degrees!

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As you can see, although very picturesque the mist made it pretty tough to see the extent of the wall reaching into the distance! Regardless it was still quite the sight in both senses of the word and I couldn't believe we were walking (near sliding!) across the Great Wall of China! Amazing!! An absolute must in China... 

Chinese Teahouse

Our guide Lily kindly took us to a Chinese teahouse (well there were quite a few other tourists coming here as well!!)  which went through the traditional tea ceremony in China. Whilst at no extra charge, we did spend a bit in there!! The talk about the teas and tasting the different types was really interesting and I feel like I could offer a bit more to my old role at Boston Tea Party now with their 25 different teas!! And it was great to see Matt actually drinking TEA, and enjoying it!