7. The Great Wall
Words really can't describe the Great Wall. We went to the Mutianyu section which is about 2 hours outside Beijing. I found a private guide named Alvin Benton on tripadvisor.com who picked us up at 7:00 am and drove us around in his van the entire day.
To put it bluntly, the wall kicked our butts. We went as high as we could before turning around and hiking back to a toboggan run that we took to get down. The ups and downs were challenging, but so unbelievably worth it. The views were breathtaking, and it was hard to imagine what it might've been like back in the day when the wall was truly guarded by soldiers.
8. Temple of Heaven Park
We got up early, had breakfast at our hotel, and went to the Temple of Heaven on our last morning in Beijing. To get there, we had to cross through a huge park filled with locals. It was basically an outside retirement home for the elderly. There were groups of people playing cards, waving streamers around in the air, playing hackeysack, dancing, crocheting. It was such a true picture of their everyday lives. I took a video of a group of coreographed dancers. Perhaps it was really an aerobics routine? I'm not sure how they all knew the motions, but literally everyone was on cue and in sync with the instructor. I loved seeing this piece of the elderly's actual daily routine.
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