Respecting the monuments: kid poops outside of the Forbidden City

We haven't been able to write because China has some crazy Internet restrictions over here so we have a lot to catch up on...but, we thought we'd start with the things that stick out in our mind over the last week. We flew to Beijing, which is huge, and extremely polluted. The coolest thing we did was take a trip to the Great Wall. After a 5 hour bus ride we got to hike the Great Wall to Si Ma Tai, which took us about 3 hours. We all kept thinking that Americans would never let people hike this due to the lack of guard rails and any sort of death protection devices. The best part was watching Ashley scale down the steep steps while holding onto anything for dear life, including the Mongolian "tour guides" who followed us the whole time and kept asking if we wanted beer. I mean I know we look like we like to have a good time, but drinking while scaling the Great Wall = a disaster. The hike was actually pretty hard, but it was a once in a lifetime experience and the views were truly amazing. Unfortunately the zip lining place was closed that day, which Leon and I were disappointed with while Ashley was secretly doing a cartwheel inside due to her intense fear of heights.



The next day we walked around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city. As we were walking into the Forbidden city we casually were admiring the sights and taking the Chinese culture in when I happened to look to my right. What did I find? To my surpise we witnessed an adolescent child squatting in the middle of a large area on top of some newsletter. I won't gross anyone out with the details, but you can catch my drift. I guess I had this impression that Chinese people were very well mannered, respectful of their environment, and pretty private natured. I was proven wrong after this experience, not to mention that everyone spits at any time and any where.



We tried to go see the Olympic venues, but the security was pretty tight. Apparently there have been a lot of people who have died building these new facilities as they are a pretty amazing site.