Great Wall!!

The day began with a visit to the Hutongs which means water mill. This was a quaint village in the the old part of Beijing. Very similar to Cambridge with winding paths and the bridge over the river (albeit this was a lake!). Quite serene actually. We took in the delights from a rickshaw ride which was suprisingly most comfortable. There are numberous weeping willow trees around Beijing but the Hutongs had numerous and we were told by our guide that they scare away ghosts.

Next stop was the Summer Palace which is actually a garden that was built in 1700's upon order of the Ming Emperor as a present for his mother. It is massive like everything else in China and we only saw a fraction of the park - but the best highlights. The lake is quite something. There is a beautifully decorated corridor made out of wood that runs alongside it for about half a mile. Different pictures have been painted upon the structure each telling their own story.

And so to the finale and what a finale it was. The Great Wall of China is pretty impressive and the part we visited was less frequented by tourists as it is located on a very steep section of the mountain; as such, you needed to be pretty fit to walk it. Up the cable car to the start of our half mile walk and the fantastic views. Amazing to think this structure has stood the test of time and the attempts by the Japanese in 1941 to dismantle it! Finally back in the cable car and the actual pod (#26) used by Clinton when he visited the wall in 1998.

Tomorrow off to Xian by train.