Wow.. the Great Wall — in awe and also a bit tricky to navigate.  Absolutely beautiful visit, with a bit more stress, mostly as some of the path had iced over in spots and Shepherd is magnetically attracted to the icy/snowy patches.

We drove about an hour and a half outside of Beijing to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Getting to the top was easy / by gondola!

Going down was much fun/ via toboggan! This guy behind William was an absolute trip.

We made it back for a brief rest before checking out the best Peking duck spot in town / Dadong (and realizing we went to the NYC offshoot of this placeduring Harry Potter “intermission”). Boys did so well with new food today.

Some S highlights from dinner (Rawls was barely awake this go around):

• “I wish I had this every day of my life”
• “I’m glad the Chinese make Siamese duck.“
• “Duck is like chicken but easier to chew.”
• “Dad… pls don’t give me anymore meat. Ok. I’ll eat it.”
• Also # of chopstick pairs dropped to the floor… 3! 

Random thing we learned: in China, if you want a car, you have to enter a lottery for a license plate, the cost of which is more expensive than most cars (300k rmb). Our tour guide has been in the lottery for 3 years with still no luck. Purchasing a domestic, electric car can get you a license plate more quickly (but he wants a minivan for his fam 😉

Also, it’s bad luck to point the spout of a tea pot directly towards any guest at a table.

New things we tried: congee (plain and prawn), soy milk (s), duck (boys)

To bed! Early wake up to head to Xian