First Pass Under Heaven

We decided to go to part of the Great Wall well away from Beijing. Little did we expect to have the Wall to ourselves for over an hour given the enormous throngs in most parts here. But it is a big country and yesterday was bright and warm. Wonderful experience. We just caught the 7:50 train in the morning by the skin of our teeth and by 1pm had scaled the Wall to several hundred feet up a steep slope. This is near where the wall enters the sea, Shanhaiguan, a strategic military location at times of invasion from Manchus, Japanese and Russians, at different times through history. To-day is a bright blue sky in Beijing and to-morrow the flight back. Ho Hum.