The Great Wall

Today I climbed the Great Wall of China. It almost feels like I don't need to say anything else, that one feat seems so incredibly huge to me. The wall is as impressive and breathtaking as anything you could possibly come up with in your minds.

I'm still in "I can't really believe I'm here mode" and this experience has left me oddly at a loss for words.
What I did not know (expect) was how cold it would be up there. Of course common sense should have told me that we were mountain trekking, but at the summit (888 meters, or nearly 2,700 feet about sea level) it was dang high, dang cold, and dang windy. I also did not expect the climb to be as steep as it was. I was huffing and puffing along the way.

Here's an image of one of favorite (not) staircases, a steep difficult climb to the next guard tower. I was bound and determined to make it to the highest point, even though my guide kept pointing out that no one back home would ask if I'd made it to the top part, only if I'd been to the Wall.

What was also surprising is that even though it is a little bit off season for visitors, there weren't nearly as many Western visitors as I thought there would be, and the higher I climbed the less of them made it that far along. It made me even more bound and determined to make it to the top. (At one point in the home stretch when I saw the final staircase ahead of me, I almost gave up.)

The Wall is about a historical site as you can imagine, but it has these odd, eclectic modern touches thrown in. Directly next to the wall is a huge construction site, that May told me was likely going to be a super-sized advertising billboard. Sad. Also there are cable cars going to the summit, but with the winds up there the cars were nearly tilted on their sides. (Not a chance in heck you'd get me on one of those babiles.) And for the semi-intrepid trekkers, the ones who've made it high enough and have no desire to climb back, the wall also offers this roller coaster ride back to the base.

Ultimately I did make it to the highest point, amid cheers of good will from the others that had made it before me. It felt remarkable. At the top was this banner, with a saying from Mao Tse Tsung that basically translates to "No one can be a Great Hero until they've made it to the Great Wall."

I'm so lame, I even bought a laminated, and "offically" stamped certificate letting people I'd made it to the highest point. From this point on, you could continue to walk along the wall a ways further, but you'd have to climb way down and the only way out was to climb way back up to the summit and then back down again, so I figured I'd gone about as far as I could go.

And for your viewing pleasure, I'm enclosing a picture of the walk I've just completed. About two-thirds of the way down on the left side of the picture, you can see a little white-green downward sloping line. That's the roller coaster ride, which is located about half way up the climb, to give you a frame of reference.

Friendship Store

For lunch we stopped in one location of a government-sponsored chain of handicraft stores known as the Friendship Store. In the lunch area were tons of tour groups, amounting to hundreds of Western people, presumably all on their way to/from the Great Wall, although I actually saw very few of them while there.

As I sat down at my little table for one (regulations prohibit your guide and driver from eating with you), at this noisy restaurant, I thought to myself, I'm really going to hate this mass-produced, Caucasian-oriented food, but as usually, it was so delicious. They offered me sweet and sour pork as my main dish, and I though "uh oh" but it was quite tasty. And the side dish, a chinese greens with salted Shitake mushrooms was so good, I ordered seconds, leaving many of the other dishes barely touched. (I hate wasting food, but there's just too much to even try to clean your plates.)

After lunch came the big challenge. Me with my commitmen not to spend more money, and a store full of handicrafts! I look at embroidery, cloissone, water colors, silks. Sigh. And of course bought a gorgeous scenic mountain (in Autumn) watercolor. Plus I bought some Chinese Watercolor paintsticks. Cost: $150 Value of the Memories: Priceless (or at least that's what I keep telling myself.)

Ming Tombs

This afternoon, we stopped at the Ming Tombs, a gigantic area housing the tombs of 14 of the Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. Many tombs have not been excavated due to concerns of grave robbers, as well as other logistical issues, but the area was huge and impressive.

Can't find my notes now, but I think this area was called Serenity Walkway, a gorgeous and meditative area, housed with many varying types of statues. Here I'm standing in front of a general, garnering support for when I take over as Empress Dowager.

A little more climbing, to the top of the Emperor Chang's memorial tower, but as May said "After the Great Wall, this staircase is a piece of cake!" I enjoyed the Ming tombs area, but I think anything would have been anticlimactic after the Great Wall.

Peking Duck

Finally, my whole reason for being in China, an evening of Peking Duck. Tonight I was invited to a lovely dinner by the Manager of the China arm of Pacific Delight Tours. We went to an outstanding restaurant, known as Quanjude, one of the oldest restaurants in Beijing, and the home of Peking Duck.

Without a doubt, this place is a must-see attraction in Beijing. Manager Wang kept ordering all kinds of really tasty dishes (duck breast sauteed with cashews, lemon duck, similar to orange chicken, but with duck fried in lemon and pineapple sauce and sesame-crusted duck breast) as a side to the main course. Oh my goodness, it was all so good I didn't know where to start.

But as good as everything was, the Peking Duck was simply the best. Just heavenly. While I said earlier that anything would be anticlimatic after the Great Wall, this certainly was the perfect cap to an awesome day. (Oh by the way we also got to enjoy a lot more of that lovely 56% alcohol rice wine, a special brand bottled just for the restaurant.)

Tonight, another massage, and then tomorrow, historic Beijing and then on to Xi'an to the Terracotta Warriors.

More later.