Now in Shanghai

Well, we're now in Shanghai after a great couple of days in Beijing staying with Gwen and Ludo. On Wednesday we went to the Great Wall of China and boy did we luck out with the weather. It was one of those perfect autumn days where you just want to be outside. And where better to be outside than climbing 5 miles of the Great Wall? The 7 a.m. pickup was a bit early for us late risers, but other than that, no complaints. We were all prepared for cold and windy conditions and brought all our gear but it was sunny all day with great blue skies and temps in the high 60s. A great day for a hike. At first the hiking was a bit strenuous, but after you got into it, it was really fun. The Great Wall is definitely a must see and it's better to hike it rather than just show up and take some pictures and go home. The countryside around there is beautiful. The only disappointment is that there wasn't an invading Mongol in sight! We were up for the challenge of defending China from the invading barbarians from the north.

Here are some pics from the Wall:





Now, once we got to the end of our hike there was a river/lake that needed crossing.



One way to cross it was by using the suspension bridge.



Unfortunately, the suspension bridge had all these restrictions on who could use it. Namely, rule 4 stated: "Do not participate if you are suffering from high blood pressure, heart-complaints, fear of heights, infectious diseases, mental illness, alcoholism, confused state of mind or physical handicapped". Well, needless to say, Karen and I didn't pass these tests. :) I'm still not sure why one couldn't cross a bridge with infectious disease or mental illness, but I'm not the one making the rules.

So, what other way is there to cross this river/lake? Well, zipline, of course!



So, off Karen and I went down the zipline.



A bad pic to be sure, but it's difficult to take good pics of yourself when on a zipline (and with Kevin's big hairy hand in the way).

Truth be told, we took the bridge across one way, the zipline back across and then had to take a boat back across yet again to the parking lot. The boat provided us with our first of presumably many future examples of "it's a small world". We get on the boat and the guy across from us says "random question, but where did you go to college?" Well, it turns out that this guy went to Yale as well and graduated in 2002 and was good friends with a couple of our freshman counselees. You just can't go unrecognized anywhere in this world anymore!