Tuesday, February 15th, 2005- Beijing

9:52am- Right now we are heading to the Great Wall. It has snowed throughout the night and the snow continues to fall.
1:00pm- We drove up to the part of the wall that we were going to climb and it was in the middle of no where. The snowy conditions along with it being totally foggy with a very limited view were definitely signs of how this trip would go. The part of the wall that we climbed was very steep and with the snow and ice, made it quite difficult. The section was mostly steps and coming down was extremely difficult and scary. I really thought I was going to get seriously hurt.
Some random facts:
- Beacon towers along the great wall were used as a lookout
- The wall is 5000km long
- The wall is about 21-23ft high throughout, but if it was made to 8 ft it could wrap around the world 8 times.
- The Great Wall is the one of only two man made things you can see from space (The other being the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island).
- Also realized that while driving, when a driver goes to pass they will beep their horn to communicate with cars around them what they are doing.