Day 34:

Some hours at a section of the Great Wall today. I went with a van full of Americans to a restored section some hours to the north of the city. That proved to be a very pleasant experience. Like the Forbidden City and so many other popular places in Beijing it is all a little bit overdone (witness the ski-lift to the top of the wall and the big 'ol slide back to the bottom), but looking out at the surrounding mountains, one does get a sense of history, and a clear sense of the wall's purpose, and the reasons for it's successes and failures in delivering on that purpose.

The lot of us scrambled up and down the steps of the wall (the whole thing is steps), peeking into ocassional sentry towers as we went. Later, at the bottom of the wall, we ran the usual gauntlet of vendors selling gaudy tourist trinckets (Chairman Mao tote bags are IN this year). My companions had fun bargainning for the junk, but I still find the process sort of tiring. I guess what makes it especially tiring is that I don't actually want any of the stuff.