As long as I have been waiting to see the Terracotta Army (see Day 10), my wife wanted to see the Great Wall of China – and today we made it! After early breakfast we picked up the other couple (really nice – explanation will come when I fill in the blanks for day 11) and drove over to the tourist entry point to the Great Wall. We decided to take the south path on the Wall, pretty steep at some points, but less crowded than the easier north path. It’s been an incredible experience walking this ancient world heritage – see yourself:

Although it’s been cloudy the sight was terrific and got even more intense, when mist started to crawl up the hills:

Still some way to go:

A song for the Wall could be “The long and winding road: (Yes, really it’s not “The” Wall, but a series of walls built over 2000+ years)

Just to show how steep this is at points:

This was the end point of our walk on The Wall – we headed back to our starting point. It’s been just great!

If anyone needs more pictures – let me know – I have “a few” 😉

After this fantastic hike we headed for the Ming Tombs – some nice views also on the way (especially now with the sky clearing)

At the Ming Tombs, we started taking the Main Sacred Way before entering the Changling – what a wonderful park, see yourself:

The Changling, built by the 3rd emperor of the Ming dynasty, is 600 years old, very impressive:

27 pillars, each made of a single tree:

The following picture shows how the marble was transported in ancient times. Only in winter, a well was drilled every 500m, water spilled on the ground, when frozen the marble was pulled over the ice:

One detail of the wooden roof:

After the Ming Tombs we had a quick photo stop at the Bird’s Nest (Olympic site):

We ended the day at a fantastic Kung Fu show, unfortunately no pictures allowed, but definitely worth seeing. I’ll search for the link to the show (which has been traveling internationally since 10+ years) and post then – if you get the chance to see it here in Beijing or on tour somewhere, I can highly recommend!

That’s it for now – stay tuned for updates

/Chris