The day today opened with rain. I was not excited in the least about it but it did. They had fried eggs and fried chicken at breakfast it was quite amusing. We loaded the bus and headed to the Great Wall, which was an hour and a half to two hours away. I saw today the China that I halfway expected to see before I got here. There were not a lot of tall buildings. There were farms and little shops and vendors on the streets. I know that’s a terrible vision to have of China before you know anything about it, but hey it was my vision. Anywho, The Great Wall is long and up on the ridge of a mountain range. We had to take a lift to get to the wall. It was in pretty good condition. You can walk 10 people shoulder to shoulder across the wall and they all will fit. Now, how you would do that up the really steep inclines that made up the wall I do not know. The group I was part of decided to climb to the highest point of the wall that we could get to. I now have calves, thighs, and ankle muscles of steel. No, really, they’re made of steel. It climbed more stairs and up and down more 20+ degree inclines today than I can safely say I ever have before. It was beautiful though. Because of the rain this morning, it was misty over the mountains, which made for some gorgeous scenery. The Wall is very impressive I enjoyed it. I also bought some things around the vendors (all 20 million of them) at the base of the climb area. They’re very pushy here in China about selling you stuff. You can haggle with them for things but they’re very in your face and take it that if you are looking at their stuff you are going to buy it. Very strange. We took the bus back to BIPT and are now waiting for dinner. After that we’re packing and heading to the Beijing train station for our train which is overnight to Qingdao [ching-dow]. Well, I’m gonna finish packing. Peace.
