so apparently, i will be sharing about china very slowly. kind of annoying for everyone who wanted to see pictures. and kind of annoying to me also, since I need to get the pictures edited and fill up the awesome frame i bought at target to house an amazing picture before i even left. :)
but think of it this way: now you get to spread out the excitement of my trip and the overwhelming amazing-ness of my pictures over months. :)
one of my very faorite parts of china was visiting the great wall.
there is something about the oldness that makes it toally amazing. i may or may not have mentioned before that i love old stuff. the older the better really, but i do believe the great wall takes the cake for the oldest place or thing i have visited.
our first peek was through this little village that basically seems to survive based on the tourists who come to the wall. see it back there behind the power lines? this photo also encompases another of my favorite things: juxtaposition.
it's a big vocab word from way back - think senior english at good old AHS - but it means to put different things together to create contrast.
it's the "new" stuff compared to the "old stuff". cities are best at this effect I think. but this village did a good job: here is a 800 year old totally huge wall, right next to our little beer store. :)
anyway...
we went to one of the less visited sections (of which there are many, many sections). i was excited because i had seen pictures of the wall before from friends' visits and they were packed with tourists. we were there with about 8 or so other folks. awesome.
we crossed this little bridge...
climbed this little "path" even though the sign clearly indicated that we were not supposed to be climbing this section of wall...
because this isn't supposed to be climbed, there was not a fee for visiting...until we came across this little old lady who apparently lived on the little path and charged people a tax to go on up.
think "three billy goats gruff" and you can't pass without paying the toll.
so anyway we paid her and mosied on. as i climbed and looked acroos the street, i was thankful we chose the "easy side" because the other side was STEEP and would have reuiqred some serious climbing.
the wall was a massive, solid structure.
and full of detailed work from obviously skilled and really strong workers.
we learned a little kung fu while we were up there too...
and then we made our way back down after checking out the view a little more...
the wall was truly amazing. the hisotry of it and the ridiculously hard work that went into building it is astounding. i can't imagine lifting bricks up one by one on my back and creating something like this. something that took centuries to build. something that is still around centuries later. almost everything we know and experience day in and day out is new and shiny, sleek and modern. it is something special to experience something old and crumbling, but still strong and mighty. something that the chinese take great pride in.
the history there is heavy. i could picture the warriors defending their homes agains invaders. i could see the night watchman trudging up and down his length of the wall climbing up and down the hundreds of stairs. it was a different time when all it took was a wall to keep the enemy at bay.