Great Wall 3

Who Built This 2- It's a power line in the middle of the Great Wall. Are you kidding me? I'm betting that it went up during the "Mao Dynasty," i.e. the mid 1900's.

Who Built This- I don't think this shack is part of the Great Wall, but rather a small tower off in the distance. We zoomed in our camera and took a picture. Someone had to strap those bricks and concrete and water to the top of that mountain and build that. Crazy...

View from Guard Tower- You can vaguely see the Chinese writing on the side of the hill.

Steep Wall 1015- This more accurately shows how steep some of the sections of the wall could be. This shows, from bottom up, Sam, Nathan, Whitney, and KATIE at the top. A girl in our group asked, "Why did they shoot arrows? They should just let the Mongols climb the wall, and then just push them down the stairs..."

Inside a Guard Tower 1- This is me in the tower at the top of the mountain. I am walking toward a window that we climbed out of to explore more of the wall.

More Great Wall

Huge Guard Tower- This is probably the largest guard tower we explored before we hiked up the section of the wall in the background of the picture.

Great Wall Town- This is the town where the people live who work at this section of the wall. In the bottom left of the picture you can see a birdcage with a small bird in it.

Great Wall Entrance- This is at the base of the Mountain. On the left you can see the window with the sign that says, "Toboggan Run Ticket Office." That is where we went.

Great Wall- Little Shops- This is where we bought the panda nesting dolls. Our lead teacher's husband, Sam, bought a cowboy hat that says, "The Great Wall." It was pretty funny. That is Bruce's head in the corner of the picture.

Great Wall pics, and Silk market

Silk Market in Beijing. This is Katie with our group standing outside the Silk Market at 9pm on Friday, when it closes.

Great Wall- Katie's toboggan- This is the beginning of the toboggan ride down the mountain. It went super fast after a while. They have workers at certain checkpoints to yell at you to slow down, in English. Notice the bridge in the background of the picture. That is part of the toboggan ride. Katie thought that was the scariest part. Bruce didn't remember going over the bridge...

Great Wall- Cable Car- This is what we took to ride from the base up to the Great Wall (Instead of hiking for an hour on the mountain, we hiked for an hour on the Wall.)

A girl in our group, Michaela, standing up on an abandoned section of the Wall. Even though it doesn't have me or Katie in it, I think it is one of the cooler pictures that we took.

Great Wall- I climbed off the wall and took a picture of Katie poking her head out over the edge so you could see about how tall it is. It would definitely keep the Mongols from getting horses across the border very easily. I'd say it's about 30 feet tall. Our guess is also that those huge bricks at the bottom are from the original wall, while the smaller bricks at the top might be from more recent restoration efforts.

Beijing 5: Great Wall Pics

Cool view of the steep stairs, with Anna pointing, Kilee and Whitney in our group. The Chinese guy on the left is a Great Wall worker who tried to sell us cold beers. They place them on the wall every half mile or so...

As you can see, they build the bricks to align with the wall, NOT gravity. Why? How? Dunno.

Nathan and Kilee hiking the Wall. In the background they put Chinese writing on the mountain, like Provo's "Y".

Bruce and Katie, right before we dipped down and hiked to that top guard tower.

It gets pretty steep. Yes, we climbed this part of the wall ALL the way to that TOP guard tower.

Beijing 4

LG Twin Towers- This was taken right outside the Beijing Railway Station (train station). When you get off the train, you see this.

Little Shop Street- There were a lot of high-end shops on this street (including a Starbucks, Hagendaaz ice cream, Nike, and tea shops.)

Tienanmen Temple 2- Another temple just across the street from the first one. It was all locked up, so I think no one goes inside it anymore.

Tienanmen Temple 1- The Huge Temple built on one edge of Tienanmen Square, facing the government building which holds Chairman Mao's body.

Tienanmen Square 2- Our ILP group standing in Tienanmen Square. This is where the guy stood in front of the tanks in protest of the government. People from left: Katie, Anna, Abbie, Kilee, Nathan. Bruce is taking the picture.

Beijing 3

Great Wall 0934- you can see in the middle the Wall splits into 3 different walls- weird.

Broken Wall 1009- yes, we crossed this section of the Wall.

Broken Wall 0997- Katie standing on a section of the abandoned wall. It was a few places like this where I got my rocks.

Base of the Mountain 1- you can see the China flag, the Great Wall, and part of the cable car tower.

Abandoned Wall- Bruce n Katie- We had to climb through a window on a guard tower to get to this section.

Beijing 2

Sidewalk by Tienanmen. Bruce walking, halfway between our hostel and Tienanmen Square (You can see the temple roof in the background.)

Food Street- this was a back road right next to our hostel, and we found a great American restaurant there (where we ate 4 times in 3 days.)

Beijing Railway Station- Our head teacher, Whitney, on the cell phone, and her husband, Sam, when we arrived in Beijing and were looking for a cab.

Train Cards- Michaela and Nathan playing "speed" at the Weihai train station before we left for Beijing.

Hard Sleepers- Katie is the one at the top of the picture, with her hand showing.

Trip to Beijing 3-17-10

View from Guard Tower on Great Wall

Bruce and Katie on the abandoned wall.

The Beijing Subway

Tienanmen Square

Train ride to Beijing