The Great Wall Toboggan

Hey everybody! I’m back with another story. So a few days ago we got the privilege of visiting the Great Wall of China, which as you all know is one of the most famous landmarks in the world. We left our hotel at 10:30 to embark on our journey to the wall. Unfortunately, the great wall is a great distance away from Beijing, so we had to deal with a 90 minute car ride. This was somewhat nice, because we were able to get a long nap in before the wall.

When we got to the site we realized it was lunchtime. Another obstacle had prevented us from the wall. This lunch was a small walk away, and when we got inside we realized it was boiling hot in the restaurant. So we had to take off our jackets and sweatshirts to readjust to the temperature, and then put them all back on after lunch to prepare for the chilly 40 degree weather of outside.

Kids in China - A Joy to Behold

I’ll admit that I was a little apprehensive about what children in China would be like. We all know about China’s One Child Policy which was instituted in 1979 to help control the population. As you can imagine, that one child was the recipient of love and attention not only of their parents but also grandparents. Unfortunately, however, since sons have traditionally been the heirs and caretakers for their parents, new parents were taking drastic measures to insure that their one child was a boy. The result was a drastic imbalance between the number of boys versus girls born for almost 40 years. In 2015 the government eased that policy and families are now having more than one child which was evident everywhere we went!

There seemed to be children everywhere we went and I’ve been getting a kick out of seeing them (and their parents)!! I also ended up taking pictures (some candid - some with the proud parents’ permission) of kids doing what kids do anywhere in the world. I’ve created a GOOGLE SITE WITH PICTURES I’ve taken. The captions tell you where we are and the jist of what’s going on - but what I was struck by was how similar kids are - wherever they are from and whatever their circumstances.