The Great Wall of China

The beginning of day 2 started with the Ming Tombs and then we went to the Great Wall of China at Juyong Pass! The wall was built, re-built, and re-built some more throughout it's history - it totals approx 5,500 miles and stretches from Eastern to Western China. The initial wall was built from packing/ramming earth! They then moved on to building the wall with bricks and stone. The portion of the Wall that we saw was 25.6 feet high with a ton of steps (it felt like we were hiking Mt. Fuji in places!). We had absolute crap weather - thanks to the "environmentally friendly" cloud-seeding the Chinese government did this day so that they would have clear skies for their 60th celebration parade the next day. We even have the papers that state the government is now able to control the weather to prove all of this. Unbelievable.

Even though the weather wasn't ideal, it was a chance of a lifetime to see this awesome man-made structure.

Here we are next to one of the watch towers. The watch towers would look for on-coming foes and then send smoke signals back to the Forbidden City (to the watch towers on the corners of the F. C.) so the Emperor would know what was coming.

There was a mass wedding ceremony where the couples were actually married while on the wall - they put locks on this chain and then threw the keys into the surrounding woods:

Michael heading up the wall - you can kind of see the wall snaking up and around the mountains:

Me starting the climb up:

There were a TON of stairs!

Looking back after climbing quite a few flights of stairs:

Michael heading up even further:

Isn't he just so handsome :)

We are so happy we got to see this together!

Michael at a guard tower further up the wall:

Looking back from the guard tower (can you tell we're higher up and that the weather is getting worse!):

Michael inside the guard tower:

Taking a breather - our guide couldn't keep up with us so she stayed below while we traversed up:

We went to the top of the second guard tower, but you couldn't see anything from the top! This is me heading back down. It's really sad, but the tourists have made the guard towers into make-shift toilets - so it REEKS of urine inside ... so gross.

Even foggier weather:

Heading back down b/c we weren't going to get any clear pictures the further we went on:

This is a quote from Chairman Mao (he is like a god to the Chinese) ... it speaks to the effect that you are not a real man until you have climbed the Great Wall of China:

After the Great Wall we went to a cloisonne factory and had lunch. They fed us pork intestines (?), something chicken-ish, ox-tail soup and some beef gristle - YUM :( We did get some really cool cloisonne Christmas ornaments (just like the ones the O-Wives clubs carry here on island) and a little vase. It really felt like we were in a sweat-shop when we were touring the factory though. Constructing cloisonne has to be one of the most tedious, detail-oriented jobs in the world.