The Great Wall and Temple of Heaven

I really wanted to spend my birthday on the Wall itself. We found a driver online and did a bunch of research about the best part of the wall to go to. Many are overcrowded with tourists and other are too far of a drive with a 4 year old! We decided on Mutianyu section of the wall. It had a ski lift up to the wall where you can walk around a bit (ok, a lot) and then take a toboggan down.

The wall was really quite steep and slanted in places but Holden was a trooper! He walked and walked and walked and wanted to walk some more, but we had more adventures ahead. We were really lucky since it was a clear sunny day since many of our days in Beijing were foggy and overcast which made it even colder.

Some of the funny translations in China are on the signs.

After the Wall, we were off to the Temple of Heaven, where we came to realize just how tired Holden was! We bundled him up and carried him most of the way through the 2km trek.

One of the funniest things everywhere we went was people wanting to take our picture especially Holdens. Whole tour groups would stop and take turns posing with our "Golden Holden." You can imagine that by the end of the week he was all photographed and touched out. We had to keep telling him to put his hat back on so he wouldn't get touched as much.

Here is a group posing with Holden.

During my turn "packing H around" we stopped to play taichi rouli ball. We even bought a set so we can play at home.

When we got back to the hotel, Nate had arranged a birthday cake, and we celebrated my 29 years and our exhaustion.