Great Wall

Wow!  Another busy day sightseeing in Beijing.  We shared a van today with another couple to tour the Great Wall at Badaling and the Ming Tombs.  The ride to the Great Wall really gave us a sense of how big a city Beijing is.  Today was in the 90's, but pretty windy which cooled it down some.  The Great Wall is really something to see - pictures don't do the job to describe how awesome it is.  We spent about 2 hours climbing up and down the wall and in some parts it was a challenge to walk up it due to how steep it is, never mind what they must have had to go through to actually build it.  It was VERY crowded and at times you really had to push your way through especially when you come to some of the narrow passageways that everyone has to go through. They say the wall stretches for some 8,000+ miles - that is about as far as we flew from Boston to Beijing.  Really unbelievable the scope of such a project.  At Badaling, the wall is approximately 25' tall and 16' wide in most places and was a heavily fortified section for protection of Beijing.  Not only is it a very popular destination for foreign tourists, but for the Chinese.  I would estimate that at least 80% of the tourists were of Chinese descent.  It was funny how many times our group was asked to pose for pictures with people from China as a novelty.  

J