March 29th
Yesterday afternoon Harlan and I took a taxi to the Forbidden City. But it was too late to get inside. So we were forbidden to go in the Forbidden City! The Forbidden City is an imperial palace in the center of Beijing. We walked around the outside wall and went to Tiananmen Square, which is the large plaza in front of the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square has been the site of several key events in Chinese history. Here are some links to see photos of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, my camera is out of commission right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Forbidden_city_07.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tiananmen_Square_2.jpg

Today we went on a tour of the Great Wall, or a portion of the Great Wall that lies around 40 kilometers outside of Beijing. First though we were taken on many side trips the first to the Ming tombs. Emperors from the Ming Dynasty were buried here, I believe there are 13 tombs. We just saw the temple of one…..the temple was built with huge timbers. We also went to a cloisonné factory, a Chinese medicine institute, had an excellent Chinese lunch(yummy food again!) and then finally got to the Great Wall.

The Great Wall was built in sections by different emperors to keep enemies out of China. The Chinese worked on the Great Wall for over 1700 years and is about 4000 miles long(although it is not all connected). The Great Wall at Badaling (which is where we were) is about 26 feet high and 23 feet wide at its base, large enough to allow six horsemen to ride along the wall.

We were only able to spend one hour there! How sad! However it was very cold. All the beautiful, but cool weather had gone away overnight and it was cold and cloudy, about 0C. Brrrrrrr. There were flakes of snow falling! Harlan and I were quite chilly when we started up the stairs of one segment of the wall. It didn’t take long before we were warm though, It is very steep climbing and the steps are very irregular, some just a small step up and others a long step up. So it was hard to get a rhythm. Plus it was just steep! Although I walk a lot, I do not climb steps a lot. We were huffing and puffing a bit. We climbed to two different towers and part way to a third before we had to turn back. Part of me wanted to keep going and the tired part of me was glad to stop. At least we were no longer freezing cold!





This is a part of the wall that has been restored. They call the parts of the wall that have not been fixed the ‘wild wall’ which is much more difficult to climb since it is crumbly and broken in places. I would love to go to part of the wild wall someday.

It’s hard to imagine the work and time involved in the making of the Great Wall. From where we were we could see various spurs of the wall covering the tops of the hills. It isn’t just one long wall but has different paths coming out of it. Wouldn’t it be fun to walk along the wall for a day or so? Perhaps someday I will come back to China and do this, perhaps you will someday.

Tomorrow the 31st of March, Harlan and I will fly to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Since we will get in late, we will spend the night there and in the morning take a train to Muenster, Germany which will be our home for the month of April.

Goodbye China. I didn’t get enough time here. I do hope to come back someday.