So after a long 4 months apart, Holly finally arrived in China for a visit during the holidays. We decided to head up the the seemingly Arctic north of China, Beijing. When we arrived the highs were around -12C (10 F), or basically the coldest we've ever been. After taking an hour long taxi ride through traffic we arrived at our Hutong Hostel. The next day we decide to take an excursion to the Forbidden City, but decided it was too cold to spend 2 hours walking around outside and headed around to Wanfujing Shopping street. The next day we took off on our mission to see the Great Wall of China. We bundled up and took the 
train out to the Great Wall. Here we are with our Christmas spirit. After asking a Chinese tourist to take our photo, it turned into a full on photo session with Holly as the spotlight. They asked to take a photo with her, then called over their friends, who attracted another group of Chinese tourists who wanted to take their photo with Ms. Clause. After hiking up and down the Great Wall, we took the train back and decided to go and check out the Olympic stadiums. It was dark by the time we got back, and it was for the better, as it was quite the sight to see when the Bird's Nest and Water Cube are all lit up at night. Not to mention the what seemed to be
100 Christmas trees lining the walkway. After a successful day in Beijing we decided
to head back for our free dumpling at our hostel. The next day we took a free walking tour of the hutong area and saw some other local sights, as well as had some Peking duck. It was quite a successful, but cold.... very cold visit to Beijing. Next we were off to Suzhou...
