Great Wall!

We started out early because we are going to the Great Wall today. Because of the rescheduling earlier in the trip, we started out at the Summer Palace. What a huge and beautiful grounds, even more lovely then the Forbidden City. The palace overlooks a lovely lake and lots of trees and plants.
Next stop was the sacred way, a very long path where the ancient Chinese took offerings for the gods. The guards of the path are stone animals, in pairs, alternating sitting and standing. Legend has it that at midnight, they switch positions, the one standing gets to sit and the one sitting stands up. Further down the path are a number of stone warriors standing at attention.
Then back in the car and on to the Ming Tombs. There are 13 tombs on the grounds, one is excavated and you can walk into the underground tomb. The emperor was entombed there, but now it is just representations of what it probably looked like. It was not our favorite stop on the trip. We had lunch at a famous restaurant near the wall, really spicy food and an unusual Sichuan potato dish. Our guide has ordered the food at each meal and I have to say I really like most of the dishes.
Finally, on to the best stop of all, the Great Wall. If there is one thing you should do in your life sometime, it is a visit to the Great Wall. We went to the Mutianyu section, a less visited area of the wall. When we got there, it was mid afternoon. The sun in the sky was casting fantastic shadows and light on the wall. We rode up to the wall in a chairlift, and then proceeded to climb to the top as far as we were allowed to go. Mike joked before we left home that it would be really nice if no one was on the wall when we got there. Well, guess what? There was no one on the wall this afternoon! We could not have special ordered the day any better than it turned out. The sky was clear, the sun was shining and we had the wall to ourselves. For the ride down, we chose to take to toboggan ride. We were lucky because we were the last group of the day to go down, a few minutes later, we would have missed a thrilling ride. We sat in a little one person sled and flew down the mountain. A couple of times we were told to slow down we were going so fast! I would take the chairlift up again just to take the toboggan down, it was so fun. As we left the Great Wall, with the sun setting, it was a truly magnificent end to a great trip!
We drove back to Beijing in the dark and went to have a hotpot dinner. The meal consisted of very thinly sliced beef and lamb and different vegetables you dip into a pot of boiling broth until it is cooked and then dip into a peanut sauce. I liked it, but it was difficult for Mike, since the only utensils were chopsticks and it is difficult to chase moving food with chopsticks. After dinner, we went to see the Olympic venues all lit up. We saw the water cube and bird’s nest then went back to the hotel to pack and get ready to go to Hong Kong to meet the CCAI group tomorrow.