There is nothing quite like visiting a place you’ve read about, and seen pictures of your entire life and then finding yourself standing on top of that structure. An architectural wonder, so dramatic in scope, scale and beauty, it has surely earned its place on the list of the Seven Wonders of the World….The Great Wall of China 
A few years ago our dear friends Holly and David and their son Elliot were invited to live in an incredible little house (Grandma’s House) in a magical village (Mutianyu) while they participated in an Artist in Residence program in China–teaching and performing dance. Through stories of their experience in Mutianyu, we knew that we had to stay in this place so dear to our friends.
The night of our arrival we were delighted to receive a FaceTime request from David and Holly. It was thrilling to communicate from the very house they stayed in three years ago! When David texted the above picture of Holly and Elliot at “Grandma’s House”, we tried to recreate the picture with Eliza and Georgia:
Eliza was enchanted by the idea of staying in the same space our friends had stayed in and said, “You mean I might be taking the same steps Holly took when she was here?” We immediately fell in love with the house and the village and fully understood why our friends loved this place so much. 
Situated at the base of the Great Wall, we were just a short walk from a beautifully restored portion of the wall. Many of the Mutianyu villagers are descendants of the laborers who built the wall. We had such wonderful encounters with everyone we met and while our communication was limited to body language, we still managed to have delightful conversations with people.
Everybody wanted to touch Georgia’s hair and learn her age.
We spent our first full day in Mutianyu relaxing. After more than a month of constant supervision of the kids, it was incredible to be able to send them outside to play in the enclosed yard. They had fun running around the courtyard, saving honeybees from a nearby hive and just being free.
That evening we hiked to another village for dinner and shopping.
The walk was full of interesting artifacts, art, nature, architecture and views of the great wall. And speaking of the Great Wall…
After viewing it from afar for a day, our second day in Mutianyu took us up to the top of the mountain to experience the wall up close.
We opted to take the cable car up…I still don’t understand how they maintain a constant speed even though the cars slow way down when passengers are loading and unloading, it has something to do with the size of the gears in the loading zone, I guess, but it still amazed me.
It felt surreal to get to the top and see the wall extending as far as the eye could see over rough mountainous terrain. Imagining how difficult it must have been to construct such a structure without the use of modern technology boggled my mind. There was a piece of me that was so stunned to have my young kids standing on the wall with me. I’m so grateful for the experiences they’re having, but I also think, “Hey, you’re supposed to have to wait a lifetime to see this! You haven’t built up enough anticipation yet.” But the thing about these kids is that they get it. They visit these historic places and observe how other people experience it and through that observation and shared experience, they comprehend its significance.
Throw in a little Great Wall history: that it took more than 2000 years to build, over a million people died building it, it stretches 5,500 miles, they used glutenous rice flour as mortar for the bricks and you can consider their minds blown.
We hiked along the wall for about 3 hours. It was cool and breezy and we met lots of people from around the world, including a delightful group of 10 year old children from Manchester, England who were in a class trip! 
Some “Canadians” stopped and asked us to take their picture. They kindly returned the favor for us. We didn’t buy that they were actual Canadians, we know that trick all too well. With Trump threatening to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement (this was before he actually did it) we were all in denial of our true citizenship.
From walking in our friends’ footsteps in Grandma’s House, to walking in the footsteps of the millions of visitors to the Great Wall, the entire trip to Mutianyu felt like we were living history. 
And it felt so inspiring.
The ride down from the wall on a toboggen was pretty spectacular!
Once we got to the bottom, a security guard took particular interest in Georgia. He began playing with her springy curls and giving us a thumbs up. Suddenly, he picked her up and carried her away from us, eventually setting her down on a ledge across the street. He removed Georgia’s hat, fixed her hair and took pictures of her. He then handed us his phone and asked us to take pictures of him standing next to her. We felt a little uneasy with his forcefulness. It’s hard to know where to draw the line regarding people’s obsession with Georgia. The attention directed at her has been constant and she handles it all in stride, but this guy….come on!
The following day another man approached the girls and serenaded them with a song blasting out of his cassette player. When he reached for Georgia’s hand to shake it, she quickly grabbed Eliza’s hand and held it up to his, forcing the singing stranger to shake hands with her big sister instead!
“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
eyeweise 