The past 2 days have been among the very best. We arrived at Tianjin port in the biggest snowstorm of the year. It was so beautiful. Everything was a bit delayed the next morning including immigration. Did I mention the biggest snowstorm..... They closed the expressway. Finally getting off the ship an hour late we got lost 3 times getting to the Wall. However, once we found the right secondary road we discovered the good thing about the biggest snowstorm... Did I mention maybe 2 inches of snow? was that everyone stayed home. We had the wall practically to ourselves.

What a truly magnificent, clear day . You can see there was absolutely no pollution. Our trip in 2009 had lots of haze so this was so nice. Although temps were at freezing we made good use of our time. I rewalked 2/3 of my trek in 2009 then turned around and and walked 2/3 of the way up the other side. I won't bore you with all the pics but I have plenty more.

The bus ride to Beijing, dinner of Peking duck and a Chinese opera filled out the long day.

Today we visited the Hidden Palace, had lunch in a Hutong and spent the 4 hour bus ride back to the ship learning about the economy and politics of this interesting country from a very brave, college-educated, world-travelled, Chinese party member who has a realistic grasp of the world situation. Fascinating. He will be joining us again in Shanghai. He's taking the bullet train while we cruise.

Heading south to Shanghai and they promise us warmer weather. I actually had 4 layers of clothes on at the wall. Bless Costco. Love their cold weather clothing.