Beijing - Part 1

We're now on full day number 2 in Beijing and loving every second of it, we've had nothing but beautiful, sunny days. Beijing is a 2000+ year old city with a population of over 13 million so you can begin to imagine where we are. Beijing is also getting ready for its 2008 olympics so is extra crazy. Where Taiwan had scooters, Beijing has bikes and when we thought driving in Taiwan was nuts we were not even close to describing the insanity of Beijing streets. Luckily there are many 'Hutongs', which are small alley-like side streets that hold traditional chinese homes. Yesterday we explored the Hutongs as well as main streets by renting bicycles from our hostel. We also went to the Temple of Heaven, where we were able to experiment with a curved 'echo wall' and the voice projecting center stone of an ancient platform. Very neat stuff. Later we passed Tiananmen square and drove past the Forbidden city which we are going to explore further tomorrow. After a drive in the park, where we saw many old dudes hanging out playing games, we went up a hill to a viewing tower and looked out over the forbidden city for the sunset and a couple $2 Yuan beers ($.30 CND!!!).

Today... WOW... we went to the GREAT wall of China. It was a 3 hr ride both ways and well worth it to get a spot on the wall that was very authentic and peaceful. We hiked an hour up to the wall and then 4 hours across for a total of 9kms. The wall marks the border between China and Mongolia and the view to both sides was nothing but undisturbed nature at its very best, mountains and forests stretching to the horizon. It was one of those memories that will definitely last a lifetime and is even better because of the work we had to put into it to get the breathtaking results. We had to climb and clamber down a series of super steep steps and ramps the most of which are originals that are more than 420 years old. We did pass a section that has been restored in the past 20 years so it was really nice to get a mix of both. At the end of the hike I (Allison) opted to take a rip-cord across the river in front of the wall, what a way to end the day! Pictures will never do it justice but we've tried and will post a whole bunch.

** having problems uploading more pictures... stay tuned...