Seriously, the Great Wall is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Growing up I’ve always learned how intense this wall is, how hard it was to build, how long it is, how you can see it from space, how old it is, how long it took to build… basically how great it is. You can’t get a good appreciation for this wall without stepping foot on it yourself. It is just incredible.
First of all, the wall is on top of mountains, several mountains, a whole range of mountains! Second, it’s huge. It’s about 25 feet wide and 30 or 40 feet tall and all made out of stone. You can’t appreciate that until you actually look at all the stone brinks, then look miles down a canyon to where they probably came from, then realize there are, what, a billion of these bricks along the wall?
We walked along the wall for a while and hiked up to the highest point in our area. The whole wall is steps, basically, and we climbed up a lot of them.
Imagine being a Mongol invader, or some roaming nomadic tribe. You’re cruising around the mountains and then all of a sudden you see this lookout on top of a high peak. Cool, you’ll say, some other people who can build nice, high lookouts. Then you keep hiking and see another lookout, then realize it’s connected to the first one, then realize there are more lookouts on the peak of every highest mountain for as far as your eye can see! You would then think, “Oh man! These people must be nuts! They must be so advanced and powerful if they can build a wall like this! Forget invading, I’m outta here!”
So with this, and an appreciation for the wall’s construction I have a new respect for the ancient Chinese people. They were smart. They probably scared off a lot of people just by the sight of the thing. I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors and in the mountains and to have this much solid development is nothing like anything I’ve ever seen. (photos)
The wall is meant to keep qwui loh like you out!!
Incredible!!!