Old China to new China

Tuesday 18th - Beijing - We got up early and drove about 1.5 hours to the Great Wall of China. It was spectacular to think of walking somewhere where 1,000,000 Chinamen (1/5th of the workforce) spent 200 years spread over 400 Bc to 600 AD, building a wall 4,000 miles long (wider than United States). The part we visited was built around 500AD. We took the cable car that Bill Clinton took when he visited. Then we hung out and hiked the wall. Dave went to beyond the tourist section to the no-admittance part of the wall. This section was not rebuilt and despite some hazzards made it to a peak (amazing to say the least). On the way down we haggled with some local vendors near the parking area; they are relentless and bartar to the max.

Then we came back into northern Beijing and visited the Olympic Park, which was recently built for the 2008 olympic games. It too was amazing as they went all out building everything. We visited the park; toured both the water Cube where Phelps won all the golds and the stadium nicknamed the Birds Nest where the track & field and opening/closing ceremonies were held. Two amazing modern structures. You will love the pictures we took. Also, we starred in pictures with a Chinese family who threw their son into Jeff's arm to hold for the still shot. Amazing!

This portion of the trip let us see rural China, which is much different than the city. The city has 16,000,000 + people (4,000,000 more than new York to give you an idea) and it is amazing how many huge buildings there are. The drive allowed us to gain that perspective too. In either place, the housing is very small.

For dinner stopped into a resturaunt specializing in Peking Duck. We had Peking Duck where they cook the duck where we could watch in an open brick oven. Then a young man carved the duck at our table. Very different, and realy interesting. They cut open the duck head, which David and Jeff ate the meat (duck brains and all).
We hit an open market on the way back to the hotel where we got to see stands of nick knacks and food stands that included squid, scorpians, beatles, and an asortment of other interesting tidbits and tasty morsels.

It was a long and busy day and just wonderful from start to end - we are all tired. After we got back to the hotel and had a night cap and some dessert, David ventured back onto the street to find the street vendors many show on the internet during the Olympics. About 50 stands of some of the same things we saw in the market earlier, but with larger scale and some added things like very large black Scorpions. David came back with a couple more propositions and still no scorpion. We'll see tomorrow!!