Mutianyu Great Wall

9th August 2004.

90 kms north east of Beijing sits this part of the Great Wall.  It dates from the Ming dynasties, and was built upon an earlier Northern Qi dynasty conception. Basically one genius decided to join all the walls together to make a single not very straight wall.

There are lots of guard towers in this section of the wall. It was spectacular to see and getting a photo without anyone in it was a real achievement.

The Chinglish on the signs outside the entrance always leaves you with an element of confusion.

Luckily Lee's Dad "Roscoe" had bought his children with him else he might of had to wait in the car.

As for number 7 of "When you across hard..." you might want to check the picture of Lee below?

We were shattered after a very steep walk up to the main part of the wall.  This wall gave us relief from the heat as the wind blew up to cool us down.

Claire (who is smiling) doesn't seem to understand Jason request to pull your ugliest, meanest Han-Chinese face at the Mongols the other side of the wall.

These steps line the wall and deter most tourists from getting in our space.

The three Stanleys pose on the wall. Lee looks very excited to be here... or is it excited to see Helen... or maybe we need help with number 7?

NB: This photo is not doctored at all.

The towers were cool.

We managed to get a section of the wall to ourselves so we adopted Chinese photo poses.

For this you have make as much noise as possible because serenity is to the bourgeois and imperialistic. Then block out as much of said beautiful attraction with your body as possible.

Claire looking after wounded Jason who was injured whilst progressing through to the second round of the Beijing Olympics boxing preliminaries with a drunk chick-groper at 8am in the morning before.

We expect the other bloke will be in a Siberian concentration camp with the other petty theifs and street urchins for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and thus miss out on the re-match.

You can get chairlifts up the wall if your legs and belly refrain you from moving. Or maybe you catch it if you aspire to reach the chain-smoking heights of Chinas great contemporary leaders.

We followed our visit to the wall with a visit to this tasty restaurant.... we can't wait for Nepal to fall to the Maoist as this is sure to improve the cuisine for the next 30 years.

"People of the world unite against good food! Bring down your governments and relinquish you right to culinary pleasure." - Taylor 2004 - closest Maoist (on his way to Nepal to ensure all herbs and spices are eradicated ready for the great starve).

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