Today marks the day of seeing our 2nd wonder of the world, having already seen the Terracotta warriors the great wall was next. We rose at the relatively late time of 9am, a rare lie in for us. Our tour has given us little leisure time and we found ourselves exhausted but excited. A 2 hour drive to the wall meant venturing into the countryside. I was surprised to find that despite the complete change in scenery we were in fact still in Beijing. Strange if you consider that a 2 hour drive up the M40 would take you through several counties and past Birmingham. I don't think we could have imagined the sheer size of the country had we not been there.

After arriving at the wall Laura and I purchased additional tickets for the cable car to the top and more excitingly a toboggan ride back down to the bottom. It was an open cable car simiular to a ski lift, but all I could see was a flimsy metal bar holding us 100's of feet in the air. After experiecing some of China's health and safety regulations I was not encouraged. Fortunately by the time a chinese man shouted at us in foreign tongue to disembark we were still alive.

Nothing could prepare me for the site I was about ot the witness, the size of the wall is emense, pictures and words cannot do its beauty justice. We started at tower 6 and traversed the rough terrain to tower 2, for such a small distance the path chaned dramatically. After 30 mintues of treking we were exhausted from the steep inclines, uneven path and odd steps. Along the way we did decided to leave our second padlock, having already left one on the love lock bridge in Paris.

Our way down was more exhilarating than our way up, having choosen to toboggan on a custom made shoot. Our vehicles were nothing more than skateboards with brakes, an interesting experience to say the least.

Later in the day we saw the Chinese acrobatics show where we were impressed by there athleticism and showmanship. The ending to the show was fasinating, 8 motorcycles ran the wall of death a deadly feat should it go wrong!

Dinner was taken at a local Dim sung restaurant in the aptly named "walking district" where the city never sleeps it seems.

You can see a map of where we treked at the following address http://www.mutianyugreatwall.net/pagecontentinfo.php?pageid=29&pagename=Map