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We woke up to the Beijing smog we’d heard so much about today. After such a beautiful blue sky yesterday, it was interesting to see the contrast. After a lovely breakfast at the Marriott, we drove about an hour to the Summer Palace. Here the Empress had a man-made lake and man-made mountains built for her pleasure. Pretty grounds with paddle boats and pontoons on the lake, but our tour guide said that the water in the lake is the city’s drinking water. The empress ate 128 dishes at each meal; a bite of each (or not). Even if she really liked something, she would only take one bite, as she was afraid of being poisoned. She did have someone else taste the food first. The leftovers were thrown away as the empress did not think anyone else suitable to eat her food.
We then drove to a large jade factory with beautiful jade jewelry, sculptures, and art work in different colors of jade. We had lunch and headed to the Great Wall. Wow! What an amazing structure the Great Wall is. This is a series of fortifications mad eof stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials where some sections were built as early as the 7th century B.C. This was to protect the Chinese states and empires against raids and invasions. One of the most famous sections, built 220-206 B.C. by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall reminas. Since then, it has been built and re-built, maintained and enhanced, with the majority built during the Ming Dynasty.
The wall was originally 5,500 miles, made up of 3,889 mile sections of actual wall, 223 miles of trenches and 1,387 miles of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 13,171 miles.
We walked up to the fourth gate from Badaling. The first two gates weren’t too bad, but gate 3 and 4 were very steep and we were breathing pretty heavily by the time we reached gate 4. There were many who went on from there. It was such an amazing experience to think about how long those walls had been there and to imagine how they were built.
On the return to Beijing, we saw the 2008 Olympic Village and the famous "Birds' Nest" Stadium, host to many spectacular events at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Seeing the Great Wall was the highlight of our trip to China!
We then drove to a large jade factory with beautiful jade jewelry, sculptures, and art work in different colors of jade. We had lunch and headed to the Great Wall. Wow! What an amazing structure the Great Wall is. This is a series of fortifications mad eof stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials where some sections were built as early as the 7th century B.C. This was to protect the Chinese states and empires against raids and invasions. One of the most famous sections, built 220-206 B.C. by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall reminas. Since then, it has been built and re-built, maintained and enhanced, with the majority built during the Ming Dynasty.
The wall was originally 5,500 miles, made up of 3,889 mile sections of actual wall, 223 miles of trenches and 1,387 miles of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 13,171 miles.
We walked up to the fourth gate from Badaling. The first two gates weren’t too bad, but gate 3 and 4 were very steep and we were breathing pretty heavily by the time we reached gate 4. There were many who went on from there. It was such an amazing experience to think about how long those walls had been there and to imagine how they were built.
On the return to Beijing, we saw the 2008 Olympic Village and the famous "Birds' Nest" Stadium, host to many spectacular events at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Seeing the Great Wall was the highlight of our trip to China!
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