The Great Wall

Wednesday morning we went to The Great Wall. We chose the least
touristy bit, which was also the longest hike of almost 5 hours. There
were times when the path was almost non-existant and our legs felt
like they were going to give way from underneath us, but the views and
the amazing experience of actually walking along The Great Wall of
China made it all worth it. We took over 50 photos trying to capture
the experience, but we know the pics just won't do it justice. It was
absolutely fantastic to be up there!
Yesterday we did an audio-guided tour of the Forbidden City. It was
really interesting and the main things we learnt were: 1. Most
emperors weren't actually worthy of becoming emperor because their
mother was just a lowly maid servant. So when the emperor became to
big for his boots, his mum would remind him of his roots. 2. There was
a lot of jealousy amounst the wives and concubines, which usually
resulted in someone dying. 3. That if you cry too much from sadness,
then you loose your eyesight. And you don't regain sight if you cry
happy tears.

Walking around Beijing it very much feels like everything has to be
controlled and there's always loads of police and soldiers around. One
of our first experiences here was quite a funny story. We were waiting
at a crossing, there was a red man on the traffic light telling us to
wait and also a police man who we weren't sure exactly what his role
was, but he was there trying to look important. On the other side of
the road a homeless man decided to cross to our side, as there was no
traffic coming and it was perfectly safe for him to do so. The man
nearly made it all the way across the road before the police man
noticed him, but for some strange reason the police man would not
allow the homeless man to step on the pavement. He forced him to go
all the way back to the side he had come from and in the process the
homeless man nearly got knocked over by the only car that finally came
across the road. A split second later we had a green man and we and
the homeless man were free to walk.
Tomorrow we leave Beijing and although we've enjoyed our time here,
we're looking forward to moving on as the smog is getting too much for
us.