Day 10 Wednesday March 8th

I slept until almost 9, which means I got 10 hours of sleep the longest yet.
I really needed it to, as I had been running on about 6 every night and that
is just not sustainable for me.

By 9:30 we were off for the Great Wall. We went to the Wall at Badaling
which is about 1 hour north west of Beijing. We stopped at the Friendship
store on the way which is evidently very famous and should have reasonable
prices. The prices were really what you would pay in the US. I didn��t buy
anything as I am told I can get all that I will want from Wang Fu Jing and
be able to bargain the price down to practically nothing. We had lunch here
and then continued on to the wall.

Several of us made a big loop on the wall. It is wider than I thought after
several people told me that it is small. Some of the steps are extremely
steep and then there are places where they should have put steps in but
didn��t and it is so steep you slide down. Good thing for the updated hand
rails. Oh yea there are also several camels and horses that you can get your
picture taken on. At the end of our loop there was a roller coaster and what
we thought were Sun bears. I paid 5 Yuan (less then a US dollar) so we could
feed them apples. That was fun. Although you had to get them right in their
mouth or they wouldn��t take it.

Kevin told me that they used to be able to march soliders two abreast on the
wall. I don��t think that would have been a problem at all. I can��t imagine
having to run up and down it. The story is that this huge undertaking was
done to keep the Mongols out by one of the first dynasties and swore to
defend it to the death. Well the Mongols had a better idea and bribed the
gate keeper who let them in and they proceeded to conquer the Chinese. Now
there is an HR issue.

We went to the Chinese Acrobat show once we returned to Beijing from the
Great Wall. It was amazing. These kids couldn��t have been more then 14 at
the oldest. They were like Cirque du Soleil in training. Sully went and
talked to the owner and got them to get Jason up on stage so that we could
sing happy birthday too him. He