The greatest day on the Great Wall!

Quick recap from my day!
We had a great breakfast at the hotel- western and Chinese! Gotta love dumplings for breakfast! Then private car and guide to the wall! Our guide was amazing and spoke awesome English and taught us so much! We were able to learn about the history of china, the wall, Beijing, culture, etc. we also asked her about communism, recent presidents, her opinions on communism and democracy in the us and other questions like that- fascinating.
One thing we learned is that she is very happy with us embassy for making china publish pollution levels which her government didn't do and hid info about until a few years ago when the US made them start. We also talked about the different cultures and cuisines within china, how they basically all hate japan, ping pong is the national sport and is everywhere. So I didn't know that the Communist party is only half of china and you have to take tests through university and you apply to be in the party and you have to have good grades and everyone really wants to be in it because then you have better opportunity to get a good and high paying job. Doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc. get paid through the govt if you are in the party. But farmers are not communist but they are allowed to use health system because the govt realizes they support the county. Writers get paid a ton for newspapers which is different from the us. Facebook is not allowed but was allowed 6 years ago then just stopped one day and they got "we chat" made by a private company (not communist) which has to pay huge tax to govt. our guide loves we chat and thinks it's better than Facebook and thought it was totally fine when it got deleted and she didn't mind.
There is also no YouTube so they use "youcoo" also owned by govt but you can still see basically everything but not gay things or porn but they can see other elections, movies, etc. "YouTube is too personal" she said and people are much more private here in china. With Newspapers and magazines they love American and Chinese famous people. - so that conversation was fascinating!

The Great Wall was insane. We took a chairlift up to it and walked around on it for 2 hours. Took so many pictures mostly on my big camera (which I am so glad I have because the pictures are going to turn out so well!!). We were soo happy- there was snow (first snow on the wall all year and it was fresh and gorgeous), barely any people, bright blue skies, and not too cold- we got soo lucky! Our 6 best guy friends got up there about the same time so got to see them and walk with them for part but Bridget Morgan and I had the greatest time and were just so happy and having so much fun!

In the afternoon we went to a traditional tea house and got to try all the different tea then they tried sooo hard to make us buy some. They are so persistent- you just have to say no and walk away or they will pester you all day!

Then we were feeling ambitious and went to the forbidden city and tienneman square and saw everything! It was beautiful but starting to get soo cold!! Took lots of pictures, walked around all over the palace and grounds then walked home through a market with shops, food stands (selling everything from dumplings to scorpions on a stick!!) we got a scallion pancake that was steaming hot then a waffle with whipped cream and Oreos- yum! Both made right in front of us (different stands though).

Such an amazing day and showering now to head out to drinks and dinner with our guy friends in a neighborhood that was recommended by friends!


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