The Great Wall

Nick had a busy week at work, but he got to take a break this weekend and we went out to the Great Wall with Dave. He is an accountant for Nick's company and it was his first trip to China so we got to take him to do a little sightseeing. We hired a car from a list of good drivers I had gotten from someone at church. He showed up at nine Saturday morning in this sweet old white van. The drive out to the wall was about an hour and a half from our place.

Nick and Dave with the driver and his van. This is on the street in front of our apartment complex.

We rode a chair lift up to the Great Wall. We were glad we did too. We wouldn't have had the energy to climb on the Great Wall if we had to make the hike up to it as well.

Coming down the mountain was a little more exciting than going up. We got to ride in toboggans.

That is one long wall!

Nick climbing on the part of the wall that was re-done.

They had these guard stations all along the wall. Here the part of the wall that had been re-done ended. We walked into that building on the newer part of the Great Wall. The older part of the wall branched off to the side. I jumped out one of those windows to get to the older part of the Great Wall. The part that hadn't been fixed up. (I only did it after watching about 10 other people do it first) The real Wall was crumbling more, and had trees growing up the middle.

There was a little path cut through all the trees. We only walked up it for about 10 minutes, but there were people going much farther than us. It would be a fun hike someday.