{ Set them free.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

{ freed on 14:34

DAY FOUR: GREAT WALL OF CHINA & MING TOMB

after 3 days of walking and toning of leg muscles..dad and i are all set to climb and conquer the great wall!!

on this trip..there's dad's friend xiao li and his wife!! there's a saying..if you don't climb up great wall, you ain't a hero..so we 4 are there to be heroes!! lucky that day weather was OK..had some sun, so it wasn't that freezing..but its tiring climbing uphill and there's a strong gust of wind blowing at your face..practically had to lean your body forward or backwards in order to get your balance..

anyway xiao li and his wife were pretty amazed at how i self took this photo and that managed to capture all 4 of us..along the way they tried too..but unsuccessful..but practice makes perfect!

the slopes are crazily steep..imagine how the soldiers in their heavy armour suits and carrying weapons had to climb...
and the floor was very slippery because many people climb the great wall and over time with erosion and all..the floor is super smooth an slippery..makes it even tougher to climb..

a broken section of the great wall

the great wall spans beyond those mountains..magnificant view...

and TADA!!! reached the top and conquered!!! in all..climbed 8 watch towers and took almost 3 hours..don't know how many kilometers in all..but my legs were sure aching...up the slippery slopes and climbing those uneven steps..

xiao li says that in autumn the view is even better when all the trees and leaves are red..so dad plans that we shall go there in autumn next year and conquer it again..

going in winter does seem like a good thing that there are lesser people climbing though still pretty crowded..but because the air is cooling..you will feel less tired..just had to face the strong winds blowing..and i mean fierce winds..

after going up..time to go down...

but we used the cable car to get back down..hehe :)

here's the burial ground of the emperors..used to be for the Ming's then the Qing's took over..

the surrounding is all mountains except with one opening..super good fengshui..that place is really serene and quiet..unimaginable..there's a reservoir there too..

chinese saying...got water got mountains..

the Qings are buried further behind the Mings..for what purpose? they want the Mings to watch over their graves, something like be their security guards..

its a long walk in...

the temple in there is built using 100 year old trees that are transported from all over china to beijing..as far as sichuan and hubei..i counted, in that temple there were at least 50 such pillars..look at the size and thickness of the tree truck and the size of the joints....no nails used!

empress headgear..more than 3000 pearls on it..

emperor's headgear made of thin gold threads..looks airy right..worn in summer..

his gown

well well..this is the end of my heritage tour with dad..learnt much from this trip and i conclude that china people are wastrels...