From Beijing: Day 2

So here's another day from Beijing. Today the weather was absolutely amazing. There was a blue sky (probably complements of all the rain we had yesterday which cleaned up the air). The weather was pleasant enough (mid-80's, maybe?), and the humidity was down. As such, it was an absolutely perfect day to visit the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of China.

So we did, and we had a great time. The Ming Tombs are impressive, if only because they're very peaceful and beautiful. "Tombs" is a bit of a misnomer, since we saw no tombs and no bodies. The closest we got was a sort of mausoleum, as well as the "Sacred Way" which is a set of roads leading up to the tombs. It was the first of two World Heritage Sites.

The other, of course, was the Great Wall of China. My first impression of the Great Wall is "busy." Indeed, it was wall-to-wall people. For that, I have a list of the top 5 ways to make life difficult for other visitors on the Great Wall:

1. Bring an umbrella, and, like most Chinese people, be shorter than me so that the prongs of the umbrella are right at eye level.
2. Stop for pictures at inopportune places to take pictures (think Asians and photographs)
3. Stop for a picnic in the middle of the Great Wall.
4. Walk extra slowly up the Great Wall.
5. Be a VIP so that you get a motorcade and the Wall all to yourself, so that you stop anyone from getting out.

Not that any of this happened to us....

Anyway, we managed to get two tickets for the prelims of the 4x100 medley relays, which Elaine was able to swim the 100m butterfly leg in. She and her American teammates did quite well, qualifying third for the finals Sunday morning (Saturday night in the US). The lineup will probably be Natalie Coughlin for the backstroke, Rebecca Soni in the breastroke (who claimed the gold medal and the world record over Australia's Leisal Jones), Christine Magnuson in the butterfly (the silver medalist and American record holder), and perhaps Dara Torres for the freestyle (who has the fastest 100m split in history). The competition will be from the Australians, who hold the world record.

The men's 4x100m medley relay team qualified first for the finals, and will lead out world record holder Aaron Piersol in the backstroke, former world record holder Brendan Hansen in the breastroke, world record holder Michael Phelps in the butterfly, and Jason Lezak in the freestyle (who holds the fastest 100m relay split in history).

Sorry about the lack of pictures...it takes up too much time to upload it to the server from here in China. We have a lot, but for most of them they'll have to wait until we get back from China.

My battery allotment for the day is up, so I'll post more tomorrow. I'll also be posting some recaps of stuff I didn't get to here later on.