China!/China_223_12262007.JPG

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I took this picture to demonstrate a couple of things. First, look how worn down the stairs are in some places. Centuries of being walked on does that to them I suppose. Next, notice how the stairs are not even heights at all but the heights of each stair varies almost at random. The idea behind this is that soldiers posted on the wall would know their section very well and they would have each step memorized. Invading armies would not be able to just run up these stairs because they cannot get in any sort of a running rhythm. What a great idea. They are very tricky, some stairs are barely even two inches tall and some are about a foot and a half. It's really smart, and even as a tourist I had to keep looking down to see where the next step was.