Great Wall, great day

Our driver arrived at 10, and we escaped the city but not the smog. I was in China in 1998 and 2001. Back then they had something known as a blue sky. The last few days have led me to believe that is a thing of the past. We were speaking with a Malaysian businessman at dinner last night, I asked him if he knew of the city Tianjin a couple hours to the south; he did and he had been there that afternoon for business. Was it smoggy there? In fact it was actually worse. As we escaped the city this morning it was fun to see the countryside, but sadly tarnished by the thick haze. I kept expecting it to disappear as we got further from the city, but 100 kilometres later it was as bad as downtown itself. Now many know I am no global warming believer, but I do believe pollution is real. This country is being ravished by pollution. It is tragic and sad. I hope that one day things will improve and that there will again be a blue sky over much of China.

Getting back to the cheery stuff, we still had a wonderful day. I have to tell you that no matter what the world thinks in their judgements, we are fit people. Some people yesterday tried to tell us not to go on the trip because we wouldn't make it up the hill to the cable car. The two women in that group had pulled out and did not make it to the top, even though we did. Well Melody and I made it to the top quite easily, myself with a 15 kg load on my back (Abigail) and Melody with a near 7kg load on here front (PJ). I felt great as we walked the wall. Looks like the 10k bike ride yesterday helped.

I won't bore you with my meanderings further but instead show you a snippet of our shots from today.













The day didn't turn out to be too long, so we ventured out to the supermarket this evening, and discovered a nice quiet restaurant with very reasonable prices and a good variety of dishes, even if the food is very similar to Box Hill. We remarked to ourselves that our chopstick handling was quite good. Picking up peanuts with chopsticks is probably a good indication of a pass. :)



Two days until Russia.