We had an amazing day with the Jay family! They invited our family and a couple from the embassy they were friends with and have known from previous posts. Thomas and Savannah chose to stay home and use their Saturday to study for upcoming finals, we just Bri and I took Rhea.
We had kind of an exciting, yet a bit upsetting drive to the wall. The driver that we hired fell asleep at the wheel, but luckily I was facing forward to avoid car sickness. While everyone else was talking together as they turned around in their chair to face each other, I was looking forward and turning back to make eye contact every so often. So when I noticed that the driver's head was falling forward, I looked in the rearview mirror to see his face, and sure enough his eyes were closed. I got everyone's attention and said, "I think our driver is falling asleep!" Quickly I tapped on his shoulder and everyone and a few of the adults yelled at him to wake up, and he did. Luckily he didn't jerk at the wheel or anything, but funny enough, he started falling asleep again! So AJ moved to the front seat and spoke with him in Chinese to keep him awake. Scary. I know Heavenly Father was watching over us!
We started at Gubeikou, where we hiked back in October, so that was fun to do the Wild Wall again.
We got so lucky with the weather and crowds! It was a Chinese work day to make up for a holiday that had that week, so everyone was working and we had the whole wall to ourselves. And the weather was perfect with not an ounce of pollution. It couldn't have been more perfect! 
Once we hit the end of where you're allowed to hike, we had to hop off the wall and go down into a valley and then hike to a point where we could get back on on the Jinshanling restored section. In the valley, we found an old abandoned house that had walls and floors were mud and stone, and the walls were covered in newspaper.
Once we hit the end of where you're allowed to hike, we had to hop off the wall and go down into a valley and then hike to a point where we could get back on on the Jinshanling restored section. In the valley, we found an old abandoned house that had walls and floors were mud and stone, and the walls were covered in newspaper.
We got back downtown and grabbed pizza before going home. The finally statistics showed 7 hours, 6 miles, 20,000 steps hiking. It was an incredibly long, exhausting day, but one of the most fun we've had at the wall! We're so grateful for good friends that we can have fun with!
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