Beijing whirlwind

We arrived in Beijing at 4:30am and we did appreciate the lie flat bed. Unfortunately the flight had almost constant turbulence so the sleep was quite broken.

The process to exit the airport on a temporary visa was quite painless and with no luggage we were in the arrival area by 5:30. This included a train from the departure gates to the main terminal. China does now have our images and fingerprints though. We said goodbye to John and Debbie and went to find our meeting point for our trip to the Great Wall.

Bill arrived right on 6:30 and the trip to the wall took just over an hour. It was the Mutianyu section of the wall which is located in an outer suburb on Beijing. We were impressed with all the new vehicles with brands we had never heard of. Evidently it can take up to 10 years in a lottery system to be allowed to purchase a vehicle. The licence belongs to the owner and moves to their next car when they change the car. Each individual can only own 2 licences and preference is given to families who do not have a vehicle.

We initially took a shuttle bus up to the entrance and then an open gondola up the hill to the wall. It was so impressive to see it in real life and watching it snake across the mountains. Only small sections of the 8000km are open to the public.

Bill gave us lots of history and by arriving early we were able to get some photos without people in there. I walked down to the Three Watch Towers which is the largest watch tower accessible on this section of the wall. The top of the wall is basically an endless series of steps and some of them are extremely steep. Taking into consideration my recovering knee I stayed around the watchtower while Regan climbed as high as he could.

Bill delivered us back to the terminal in the time he promised and we were able to go straight through departures. Three security checks later we were finally allowed access to the Terminal 3 departure lounge. The 36 hours of travelling was starting to catch up but we were able to have a shower to freshen up before boarding our next 9 hour flight to Copenhagen.

Grant met us at Copenhagen Airport and helped us navigate the train across the Oresund bridge back to Malmo and a taxi to Emily and Fredrik’s house (more on that tomorrow). So much excitement with Judy and Grant already here and meeting our new great niece Nora. Judy had cooked a delicious fresh dinner and we crashed before 9pm.Read more