Old Wonders vs New Wonders: Great Wall faces off against the Olympic Stadium, 2008

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Furlongs ejected from bed at 5.45 this morning for our early bus to the Great Wall at Jinshanling, some 3 hours and 110km distant. Not for the feint hearted or weak limbed, our itinerary had us schlepping up to the wall, grinding 10km to the adjacent town, often on hands and knees over 45 degree gradients, before dismounting via a several hundred meter death slide. We conclude with a double tuck somersault and clean landing on the mat. Okay, that last part was　an exaggeration. The distance & adrenalin quotient of this section of the wall means it's almost deserted - we saw only a half dozen other folks in addition to the 20 on our bus from the hostel, and we quickly dispersed (outpacing all but a giggling gaggle of yankee gals, who we suspect cheated by taking the cable car up and by being a dozen years younger than us).

The Great Wall deserves its iconic World Wonder status. It snakes across the summit of remote, lush hills via some crazy curvatures, separating China from Mongolia. The structure is meticulously restored one moment, evocatively unrenovated the next. It's a tough 10km trek traversing countless treacherous steps, masonry crumbling danbgerously underfoot. It's also punishingly hot. Local villagers sell gut twistingly frozen water from every watchtower but, despite the persistence of a couple of salespersons, one of whom scores a postcard sale to Cav, another an overpriced Coke to your sugar slave author, one is able to achieve the peaceful seclusion necessary to fully appreciate the grandeur of this wonder. At least until Stace breaks wind proudly and loudly.

Two noteworthy moments; one when I paused, took a deep breath of clean mountain air , surveyed the awesome spectacle and told myself "you'll remember this moment for the rest of your life". The second was during lunch in the 13th watchtower wherein Stace defied the smoking ban but was unsuccessful in his efforts to achieve immortal infamy by enflaming a wonder of the world. Fortunately the ancient stone was non-combustible. Naughty Stace - I'm telling.

I have to confess to a degree of gut tightening anxiety as we approached the death slide denouement. The danger was heightened by the lack of a Western toilet and our failure to bring our bog roll. Fortunately the "flying fox"'s nappy-like design applied the appropriate pressure to avoid an embarassing incident. The descent itself was quite tame, although scenic, but I still have issues about stepping off precipices (precipii?) which will need to be resolved before the New Zealand bungee.

Cav emphasized that the key to a truly memorable day is variety, thus we asked our bus driver to drop us on the outskirts of Beijing, we hopped in a taxi, and concluded the day in a contrasting visit to the ultra modern, truly gobsmacking 'birds nest' Olympic Stadium, a daring design by Herzog and de Meuron, architects who Cav enthusatsically tells us also designed the Tate Modern and Allianz Stadium in Munich which you may recall from the World Cup. One hopes London is as creative with it's Olympic plan, although the revolting 2012 logo doesn't bode well.

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Photos

"Race you!"
Kieron sprints up the Great Wall in yet another demonstration of his athletic prowess (editor: tongue is firmly in cheek at this point)

Prancing Furlong, Great Wall, China
Cav in familiar pose

Doing the Great Wall - Bond style
Stace tears down the Flying Fox in a dramatic escape from the forces of evil.

...Odd-Job follows
Kieron screams all the way down the Flying Fox in a melodramatic escape from the force of nature.

Bird's Nest
National Stadium, Beijing nearing readiness for the Olympics

Work it baby!
Cav and Kieron ham it up during training for the egg and spoon race at next year's Olympic Games.