Slip sliding on China's Great Wall

Beijing doesn't see much precipitation. This year was somewhat of an anomaly because the government was seeding the clouds more than usual in a frantic effort to clear the skies for the Olympics. The Games are now over and with them, the rain is gone too.

This made last Wednesday's snow extra exciting, right before Christmas. I've seen more sand in Beijing from the Gobi desert than I've seen snow around here. Brooke and Cheryl were visiting us from Cedarville University and I volunteered to take them to the Wall, which lies about an hour outside of the city. As I was riding my bike to the Ren Da campus to meet the ladies I noticed a few flakes. The snowfall increased the further we drove from Beijing's center and started accumulating on the roads. As you can see, there were several inches at the 八达岭 Wall site. We were actually only on the Wall for 20 minutes at the most due to the temperatures and slipperyness factors, but it made for pretty pictures!




This is how we got down too... whether we intended to slide down or not!



Brooke and Cheryl being very careful on their climb up!