The Great Wall of China is just that - great. It stretches nearly 4000 miles over some very rugged terrain. It took centuries to build and it's estimated that 2 to 3 million Chinese laborers died in the effort. Our group was on a portion of the wall just north of Beijing. A few of us hiked a loop that took us about 2000 feet up to a ridge top (you can get a feel for how steep some the sections were from the second picture), along the ridge and then back down again. After the wall we had lunch at a restaurant connected with a cloisenet factory and then we went to the emperor's summer palace. The Chinese emperors made of science of excess. This evening we went to a gymnastics show that was pretty spectacular. I'm sure that most of the performers were Chinese Olympic gymnasts until they reached the minimum age for official Olympic competition at which point they were too old for the team, so they were switched to the theater. No matter - they were amazing!
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