Friday and the great wall. Four of us from work went to the great wall in badaling. This is the one of the most tourist and restored parts of the wall so do not expect to see the most authentic part of the wall here. i will go to the less restored part of the wall later on when it is warmer. It was cold as balls when we decided to go. i am guessing it was around -25 Celsius.

to the left is the sliding car ride. Basically a roller coaster that lets gravity do most of the work going down. Looked to be mostly a kids ride but we almost took it back up the mountain when we got to the end of one of the sections of the wall.

camel rides. There were a lot of these and pony rides as well. You could also take a picture with the animals.

we walked along the wall until we reached the end of the section we were on. We had two choices going back we could either walk along the section we had been on or take a fork on the wall and see if we could somehow get back.

we decided to take the fork. This led us to a different section of badaling and a different parking lot. That is why we considered taking the sliding car back up the mountain. We also thought about riding one of those camels back half seriously. We asked the camel guy though and he was going to charge us 500 quai (about $60). We decided to try to find a cab.

here are the gondolas you could take from the parking lot to the top of the badaling section of the wall.

jay kept telling us these were for kids and grandmas but after walking up some pretty steep sections i was ready to throw on a wig and use a walker if it would require less walking up really narrow stairs.



here is me, jay and cong at the end of the first section we were one. The sign in the back says don't climb on the wall. You can also see my new fashionable bargained for hat. As soon as we stepped out of the car people began asking us to buy hats and postcards. at first i kept saying no but as the feeling quickly drained from my ears i started thinking more about getting one of these. The guy wanted 35 but through lots of no no no and walking away we were able to get him down to 5 quai (coincidentally one of the two numbers i know, wu == 5).

here is a picture of jay, Eric and cong at the bottom of one of the steepest sections we walked on. It was about this steep going up to the tower then back down. On the other side we were standing there debating walking up because it was so steep and all of the sudden these 110 year old tourists started scampering down the stairs. Everyone else kept talking about how we could do it if these old tourists could. i was not so sure, i have seen old tourists do feats of strength i know i am incapable of. If they pay money to get on that tour there is no way they are not going to see every last thing it offers.