Goodness Gracious, Great Wall of China

Okay, we're getting a little more tech savvy as we go along and can now put comments directly under a photo. The above exotic looking dish was presented to us, head and tail intact, as part of our lunch at the Yulong Restaurant on Saturday. It was deep fried. The parts that look like mandarin oranges are actually fish flesh. Tasty, but be careful of bones.

Today wasn't quite as jam-packed with activity as yesterday, but still plenty busy. Got started at 8:30 for the hour bus ride to visit a section of the Great Wall. We stopped at a jade factory along the way and saw many beautiful things and bought a few inexpensive items. Then we moved on to the wall, which snakes over 4,000 miles across northern China and is about 2,000 years old. It is, as you can imagine, a huge tourist draw and there were tons of buses and people around today (it was also a beautiful, blue-sky day with mild temps, which no doubt drew even more people). Joe and I chose to climb in the opposite direction from where most of the tourists seemed to be (it looked to be shoulder to shoulder people from what we could see); apparently our side of the wall had less impressive views but we opted for a little more solitude. We hiked up a little ways. The stairs (which I don't think were original; they were in too good of shape) were really uneven. Some stairs were a few inches high, the next one might be a foot or more high, so you really had to watch your step. It was also super steep in some sections and helpful to use the handrail. As neither Joe nor I had anything to prove in the way of climbing prowess, we stopped when we were tired, took a few pictures, climbed back down and had some ice cream.

After the wall, we had lunch at kind of a touristy restaurant then came back to Beijing and visited the Temple of Heaven, a set of beautiful buildings set in an expansive park. The emperors would visit the Temple of Heaven just twice a year to pray for abundant crops; the rest of the year it sat unused. Today the grounds are filled with people and it was interesting to walk through and people watch. There was a big singing group gathered in a pavilion singing revolutionary songs (according to Chen). Also saw an elderly gentleman rolling his Chinese exercise balls in his hand (I love this photo).

We were back at the hotel by six tonight, and I think we'll stay put the rest of the evening. The tailor who visited with us on Thursday delivered three pieces of clothing we ordered (two for Emma, one for me) to our room, and a little later another tailor will deliver a suit and some shirts Joe has ordered.

Tomorrow we leave for the airport at 8:30 a.m. to catch a flight to Wuhan City at 11:25. Wuhan City: The place where we meet Emma on Monday. Oh my goodness.