Beijing

From Hong Kong Mark and I went over to Beijing to supervise preparations for the Olympics. Construction and renovations were everywhere, so I think they'll pull it off next year. We checked out Tienanmen Square and walked through the Forbidden City. We also saw the Emperors' Summer Palace, between the 2 places the Emperor had a lot of land that the citizens were never allowed to see. The Summer Palace also housed the renowned marble boat that the Empress Dowager (Emperor's mother) gifted to the navy while they were in the middle of losing a war.

The highlight of our China trip was spending a day trekking along the Great Wall. Its amazing a structure this big was built so long ago. In the sections we explored the wall followed a high ridge at the top of some hills, and looked like it would have been effective enough that Mark could have defended it on his own. I also found it amusing that they mentioned that it was proved you can't see the wall from space in 2003 when one of their astronauts went up into space. I wonder if they had to rewrite the school textbooks after that.

Next up: Europe