Mutianyu - one of the easier places to get to on the Great Wall yet not where EVERYONE must go (the trip everyone HAS to take, they will tell you is the Great Wall at Badaling with a stop at the Ming Tombs).  The night was definitely below freezing as you can tell from the foliage.

 

I am up on a Turet now with two people I met on the way up in the van.  Both were on short work stints in Nanjing and came up for the weekend to see Beijing and the Great Wall.  A Brazilian and a Venezuelan who spoke English, Portuguese and Spanish - the Brazilian also spoke Italian as he worked for Fiat!  We hiked the Wall for four hours!  Yes, you can see it is quite the hike.  So for those who just don't want to do much, there is a cable car (the Chinese seem to put cable cars everywhere!!! - spoils of affluence?  grin)

 
If you look at the top of the picture above, you can see the cable car end so that one only has a short walk to the wall!!  Laughing.  I loved the hike and chatting with my new friends.

OK - I will do this one day at a time.  ALL of my Beijing pictures are yet to be posted and China blocks my blog I will post the link to November 16, 2008 and Mutianyu here soon.