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Published: March 30th 2008
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A Small View of A Great Wall
One of the more common adjectives used about the Wall is "meandering", and they are not kidding. Beautiful, but no undue concerns about "shortest distance is a straight line" here! Or: Sleeping is for the weak - we're climbing the Great Wall of China!
Just a note about the sleeping: Ian is not doing it at the right time. Yesterday’s 3 p.m. nap and 7 p.m. bedtime led to a 3:36 a.m. wakeup call for mom, and a 4:00 am trip to the lobby for dominoes and hot chocolate for Ian and dad. We decided Auntie Pam should join the fun, and Ian started delivering coffee packets and sugar packets to her door at 5:00 am, with a gentle ring on the doorbell (they really have them at each room door) to make sure she didn’t overlook them. Well, at least we were ready for our 8:30 pickup by Michelle and the irrepressible driver, Mr. Wu. (We did manage to make him laugh once on the way to the Nanjing airport, but you’ll hear about that in due course).
By the way, how is it we never learned that the Great Wall is made almost entirely of stairs of irregular height at school?! Or was I just sleeping through what would later turn out to be very important information...
Hi everyone, it's Becky's and Pam's turn to contribute
Ancient Chinese Defensive Measures
Let's face it - it doesn't matter if you have a sophisticated line of defense if the soldiers fall asleep on watch. Was this secret smuggled out by Maro Polo? to the blog today. Anthony requested that we state this up front; something about protecting his reputation (though I'd like to point out that we're not the ones that ate the duck head, so it's not clear what reputation he is trying to protect).
You may be unsurprised to hear that the Great Wall is quite an astonishing sight. How could a wall that is almost 4,000 miles long be otherwise? We visited Juyong Pass, a spot known for its strategic significance since it is one of the few passable regions between mountains of the Taihang range. Emperors used the Juyong Pass to travel between Beijing and the central plain of the north (and invaders used the reverse course). The Wall actually served well as a defense in this region since armies were unable to travel directly over the mountains and were forced to use this pass, so defenders based on the wall had a dramatic defensive advantage. What is even more astonishing is the number of amenities that were available to the defenders which included covered watch towers and hot cappucino. This ancient beverage must have been necessary to help the soldiers maintain vigilance during long, cold night
Can you hear me now?
Yes, Virginia, there is cell phone reception at the Great Wall. Here's a picture of Pam ordering Domino's. Will they make it in 30 minutes, or will the pizza be free? watches (we can personally vouch for the cold, wet and snow).
Ian showed his Han blood here, racing to the top of the stairs with Anthony only a few steps behind. Pam and I covered the rear to protect these reckless, would be warriors from an unexpected rear assault. I wish we could attach a video Anthony took while midway through the climb. It's about five minutes of the sounds of rhythmic steps, one after the other, with a bit of labored breathing by the film maker and a stream of chatter by the young warrior. How Ian managed I just can't say; some of these steps are about a foot high and I was feelin' the burn after the first few hundred (ok, the first few dozen) stairs. The entire climb took about 1 hour 15 minutes up, and 30 minutes down. Our guide, Michelle (who stopped at the first of 7 guard towers to wait for us - smart girl) told us there were around 660 steps to the final watch tower. I think that was a serious underesimate, and certainly does not include the stairs within each watchtower that takes you to the lookout points. We
Almost there (not!)
Turns out there were still two more watch towers over the hill before the face-saving turnaround point. spent a few minutes wondering how a soldier carrying weapons, who had just climbed hundreds of steps to get to the watch tower, could possibly face the ordeal of climbing high, narrow steps in the face of vicious defenders wielding spears in order to take the watchtower. Then I read more about the wall on a website and found that no one ever stormed the wall from outside - they just bribed the soldiers manning the section of interest and walked over. Conflict resolved.
The view from above was quite fantastic, and the mallow pies and Coca cola that Ian and Anthony bought on the way up helped the boys refuel, especially Ian. If Pam had known about the healing powers of Coca Cola and mallow pies she would have partaken as well. But, alas, several days later and she still has sore calves. Someone forgot to tell Auntie Pam to spend six months on the stair-stepper preparing for this fabulous vacation. Ahh... the lessons we learn.
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