Hikers Consider Spending Entire Day at that Super Cheap Massage Parlor Down the Street

We just had the most amazing and exhausting day. We hiked the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Simatai, a distance of somewhere between 6-7 miles. The vistas were incredible, the air was clear; it was all so breathtakingly beautiful. The hike was one of the most physically taxing things I have ever done--we were climbing and descending (often steep and crumbly) stairs the whole way. Plus it's in the mountains, so the air is thin. It was so intense. Looking at pictures of the great wall, I had no idea how difficult (VERY!) even getting from one tower to the next could be--and we crossed 30 towers in today's hike. It took a little over five hours. At the end, we had the option of hurling ourselves across a gorge attached to a piece of rope sliding along a cable (ugh, what is that called? fox fly? rappelling? my brain is not working so well...) to get down the mountain, rather than hiking down the trail. Obviously, we did that, clinging to each other, screaming, legs dangling hundreds of feet above the ground... Thrilling!

Tomorrow night we take an overnight train to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors. We are planning to go to Chingqing from there to book a cruise up the Yangtze River. We have not booked those tickets yet, and are just hoping things work out. The train to Xi'an ultimately ends up in Tibet, so I sure hope we don't fall asleep at an inopportune time...