T'is a Great Wall

Last weekend we took a hike up the Sima Tai section of the Great Wall. I felt that it was actually hard to appreciate how incredibly long the wall is when you can only see one small section at a time. One thing that surprised me though was how steep the wall is (which you can't tell from the photo below). It's by no means a stroll along a wall, it's more of a hike up a mountain, which I didn't realize and so was wearing flip-flops. Another thing that surprised me was how many people there are on the wall trying to sell things. These women would come up to us to fan us, follow us all the way up the wall for an hour offering hats, postcards and trinkets for outrageous prices. It took me a while to bargain a fan down from 60 to 15 kuai, and at the end I'm sure she still thought that she was ripping me off.