21/10/2009

Day 16 - Beijing: Great Wall, Ming Tombs

Today is the day, I can hardly contain my excitement, we are going to the Great Wall!! I wonder if we will see any rabbits?

Wow, the wall is amazing it goes on and on and on as far as the eye can see in both directions. The part that we walked on was very steep. Some steps were so big that Dad had to lift me up and Mum's legs could just get her up. We climbed to the first tower and the view was breathtaking the mountains in the background and all around us were very picturesque. We climbed further to the next tower and Mum had had enough climbing. Dad and I were eager to keep going so we left Mum and climbed for another hour all the way to the top. Dad and I felt like men, achieving a mean feat climbing the GREAT WALL of China. We were hot, sweaty and hungry, lucky lunch was our next stop.

After lunch we went to the Ming Tomb's, the area was named this as the 13 Emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried here. Like the Egyptians the Emperor's wives were also buried with him, it was tradition that the concubines had to commit suicide so they could be buried with their Emperor. Also the workers who built the Emperor's Tomb were killed so that they could not tell anyone else about the Emperor's Tomb. However unlike the Egyptians the Emperor could not build his tomb bigger than the Emperor before him.

We were extremely tired after our long day and decided to have dinner in the hotel. What we didn't know was that we were the only ones (probably because it was 8pm) so we got our own private dining room. It had one round table set for 4, a chandelier and two small couches. We felt like royalty - the food was very good too.