Julie and Nigel at the Great Wall

It was one of those moments when it's hard to feel a sense of reality - finally reaching the Great Wall of China, one of the world's most distinguishable structures, is almost as difficult to grasp as its proportions. We still sometimes experience the same thing when we visit the Grand Canyon

Dragon's Back

Looking like the back of some great serpent, the story is that this part of the wall took so long to build that the Prince responsible for its progress was put to death. Later, when the quality of the work became apparent, he was posthumously honored and his family was restored to its former place. After hiking along the top I was impressed it had been built at all, let alone stand for almost 2000 years

Gaping Jaw

Contrary to what you might think, this section of the Great Wall is not named after the effect it has upon you. It is known as Gaping Jaw because of the shape it makes as it follows the mountains' contour. Huanghua is part of the wall that has not been restored and is still quite rarely visited.

Julie hikes the great wall

Julie walking towards one of the guard towers

Lookout towers' outlook

The Great Wall often zig-zags so that guard towers such as this one can offer flanking fire to nearby sections. It is possible to spend the night camping in the structures along this stretch.

Pay the nice man his money

One rarely sees the Mao suit in cosmopolitan Beijing anymore, so when we found this Long March leftover we asked to take his picture. Cashing in on his cache, he demanded 2 Yuan - about 25 cents