Another photo of the wall from the guard tower. Let me just say, these mountains were so steep I really challenge the necessity of having the Wall up there. I mean, what Mongol army is gonna climb over these hills?  

This is looking back on the guard towers we stayed in. I slept in the topmost one.  

Leaving our tower in the morning we hiked down to the other tower (where the other photo was taken) to pick up the other kids. You can make out other parts of the great wall in the distance and the lake we hiked around. Going down was much easier than going up. 

This was the view from my "bedroom" window in the guard tower. Mornings in the China, I guess even in the mountains, tend to be a little on the hazy side, but it was still gorgeous to see. 

Another pic of the inside. 

This is the inside of the tower I slept in, taken from my spot, where I slept. As you can see, it wasn't exactly four start accomodations. Plus it got freezin cold at night, and our made-for-Chinese sleeping bags were a little on the small side. 

Here's one of the guard towers we slept in. This isn't the one I was in, but they're all the same. If you look above the top left window you can see the head of one of my friends. Some kids slept up on the top of the tower - on ours we had a nice fire going for some time.  

And so the sun sets. Here's a (bad) pic of me and some Chinese students who were on the trip with us. After hitting the dead end, we hiked back down to the lake. The sun was almost gone at this point, when a few of us decided to make a second go at it after hearing about a, supposedly, short way to get up from some of the kids already up on the wall. Well, it wasn't a short way at all. In this pic, I'm in the front of our group, which started out with about five of us and turned into more than thirty. At this point, I'm in the lead, not knowing where in the world to go. The girl right next to me, believe it or not, is in high heels! This hike was no walk in the park either. It was steep and between all 30 or so of us, we only had a couple flashlights. The kid who took this picture was right behind me the way up and ended up falling of the Wall! About 15 feet down he fell, and would've rolled all the way back to Beijing if a tree hadn't saved his life. It was scary as hell. Once we made it to the top, we heard that one of the Chinese students fell off the wall and was bleeding badly from his head. He turned out to be okay, but it was quite a frightening adventure. I had a blast but it wasn't the smartest hike. 

We hiked around this lake on our way to where we planned to spend the night. It was an abosuletly beautiful hike but the trip, shortly after this pic was taken, began to get a little crazy. You see, first of all, nobody really knew where we were going. Second of all, as you can kinda tell from this pic, we didn't have much time until the sun set, and seeing as we were spending the night on the Great Wall, which is on top of friggin mountains, we kinda wanted to get there before it got pitch black. But we didn't.  

A better shot of the Wall. We visited an area not often known as a touristy type place. Part of the reason for why it's not as well known is cause this section of the Wall hasn't been restored. Sections of the Wall closer to Beijing are in much better shape, and I hope to get to one of those places before I leave. Oh, and they just in the past month opened a Starbucks on one of the more popular parts of the Wall! It's too hard to believe, so I gotta see it with my own eyes. 

Great Wall pics! This trip was sick. Here's when we first get there, and we're walking through this little town toward the park we'll be staying the night in. You can make out the Great Wall on the top of that mountain, um, behind the power lines.

Bill Clinton spoke here (I think this is the right building). 

Beida's library. It's the largest in Asia, and always packed full of hardworking Chinese students. If American students worked as hard, we'd have nothing to worry about. 

This is right near my dorm. It's the way we walk to the West gate (Beida Ximen(r)) to get out of campus.  

This is the path around the lake...gorgeous. As you can kinda see, students can often be found studying at the edges of the lake. A friend and I had plans to buy remote control boats (they're really cheap here, of course) and to play with them on the lake. We changed our minds however, considering the lake is super famous and we didn't want to piss people off...so we bought remote control trucks instead. They broke within 24 hours.  

Here's some pics around campus. This one is of our dorm. Nothing special to look at but it's home for now. I'm on the fourth floor. 

Chillin at Jiinshan early in the morning, jammin out with the traditional Chinese music. These guys know how to start the day. 

Another curious activity at Jinshan Park - older men painting chinese characters with water. Don't ask me what they're writing 'cause we couldn't figure it out, but it looked really cool.  

Don't ask me what these old folks are doing. It was an interesting to see though. They'd slap themselves, cover their eyes like in the pic, then shout something when they uncovered their eyes, wave their arms around. I think it has something with circulation and getting the blood flowing early in the morn. 

Jinshan Park, Beijing. 

Before the Forbidden City we went to Jinshan Part, where this photo, and pretty much every photo of the Forbidden City, is taken. The park is beautiful, and on the weekends it's packed with families and seniors. The seniors do all kinds of stuff, like taichi, health exercises, play music.  

The Imperial guard dog. 

What's an imperial palace without its very own imperial Starbucks? 

My usual seat in the Forbidden City, sometimes referred to as the emperor's throne. For some time now I've been requesting that my servants install a flat screen tv and satellite dish so I can watch the Skins game but good help is hard to find in China. Maybe next season. 

Me and the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City. This hall, along with the Hall of Medium Harmony and the Hall of Protective Harmony form the Outer Court of the Forbidden City. It's also referred to as the throne and was used for important ceremonies like the enthronement of the crown prince and the emperor's birthday celebrations.