LINK to PHOTOS!

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=436121189660448606/l=304415153/g=38535008/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Today Matt and I traveled 3 1/2 hours in a van with 6 other people from our hostel to Jinshanling (an area of the Great Wall that is still in its original condition dating back to the 1200s). We hiked 10K of the wall and finished in Simatai. There were very few people on the wall other than ourselves. Most tourists visit a restored area of the wall at Badaling just 1 hour outside of Beijing. We wanted to try to get away from the herds of tourists and a have a better experience. There were a few locals following us on the hike and although they really just wanted to sell us postcards, they were really helpful when we needed to navigate some of the tricky passes of the wall. In total we passed through 30 watch towers in about 5 hours. It was absolutely stunning and I think we took about 90 pictures. We are going to try to meet up with a few of the girls we met on the hike later in our trip, either in Xian or Thailand.