In Which Chinese Walls are Walked Upon, Not to Mention Camels

I completely agree with this, that walls solve the wrong problem, and would even go further to say that building giant walls is the wrong solution to the wrong problem, nevertheless, the Great Wall is still impressive.  

You get to it by climbing a long steep tree-lined stair.

No one who claims to be able to see the Great Wall from space
has ever tried to see it even from the next mountain over.  

The views from the top are spectacular, even in the poor visibility that is the air around Beijing.

Itty bitty cannon!  So cute.  

A horrifying number of people died building this wall so that centuries later, tourists could take pictures.  If Mongols invaded, we the tourists would be asking them to pose.

Some parts of the wall go up and down steeply at around 45 degree angles, which in 90 degree heat is hard, or so I thought until I saw the little old people walking up and down smoking, and felt ashamed of my weakness.

See what I mean about steep?  

Apparently at another part of the wall, Mao wrote something on a rock, so at this point at the wall, someone wrote something to Mao on a rock.

I love these mountains. 

View from the window of a guardhouse.  

Little statues on the roof of the guardhouse.  

The  most massive security system ever built now has a giant slide that tourists can ride down on little toboggan thingies with rudimentary throttle and brake systems.  This is stupid and cheesy and a ridiculous amount of fun.  I highly recommend sliding down from the Great Wall.

There were camels at the parking lot by the base of the stairs to the wall.  I don't know why.  But they were very friendly camels, so why not?