Have you Been Whelmed Recently?

There are those places in the world that you hear so much about that you are just certain they are over-hyped.   You go because you “have to go,” but you really expect to be under-whelmed.  There is just no way the Grand Canyon can be THAT Grand!  How great can a wall in China really be?  It’s just a way after all!

No!

It is a GREAT Wall!

No, that doesn’t even come close to my reaction!  It was there, standing shrouded in a mist that arose from the depths of the earth.  (OK, in fact it was another cloud of pollution, but the effect was the same!)

We took the cable car to the top—there just wasn’t enough time to hike to the top, nor do I think my legs, ribs or lungs could have managed it.  So how in the world could an entire army managed to get up there and then fight their way over?

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so let me give you just a few thousand! Words, not pictures!

The next time we get married we are having our wedding pictures made on the Great Wall!

Reading your Nook on the Great Wall.  When centuries collide!

If Savannah had been here the day would have been perfect!  Well that, and if we could have done the toboggan down the hill, but Anita says broken ribs say no!  Next time though!

A reflection:

This wall was built over centuries to keep the Mongolians out.  It was successful.  It did keep them out—but it also kept the Chinese in.  For centuries the flow of people and idea stopped, which led to isolation.  That is beginning to change, but the fear of outsiders is not a Chinese monopoly.  It is just as alive in church as over the centuries we have built walls to protect the precious valuable faith that we hold, but also to keep “them” out. 

I wonder in a couple hundred centuries if our walls will be deemed this great?