Beijing - Day 92-96

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Great Wall Day! We woke early and took a two hour bus trip to Mutianyu, our Great Wall access point. Rather than take the gondola up to the top (yes - they have a gondola at the Great Wall of China) we decided to hike up to the wall which kicked off a day of a lot of hot hiking - it was very humid and about 38 degrees Celsius - which is 99 decrees Fahrenheit! Despite the heat the wall was stunning!!! Climbing up out of the small tourist town below, we felt very isolated when we got up there. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like stationed on the wall looking out for the enemy. It must have been a punishment to get "wall duty"... It actually was punishment for those unfortunate enough to build the monster. Some parts were almost impossible to climb up, let alone think about laying the bricks for. Hiking along the wall was tons of fun and totally surreal. It was a truly great lifetime experience. One of the best parts had to be the luge ride down. Yes, they have a luge ride down. It seems absurd and we had a hard time accepting it at first, but it was great fun!

The rest of our time in Beijing we spent between the planning museum, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the 2008 Olympic construction site, and walking through the Hutongs (old style Beijing homes). We also experienced the Beijing Opera which we were told was like listening to a long, ear piercing cat fight. Lucky for us it actually didn't have much singing and was surprisingly very acrobatic. Beijing was the end of our tour with the NorCal American Planning Association, so we bid our new friends good-bye. On our own again...

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Photos

They Work Hard
Pat giving our driver a break.

Dumplings!
Yummmm!

Comments

[Grecos]

Hey...
We're vicariously living out your adventure with you. Just caught up and read your every word to date. What a wonderful journal of memories. You will never be sorry you took the time and effort to do this. Pat, your Mom's looking forward to catching up with you this weekend in HI. Tell her we said "hi."

[John Castanon]

Pat, you look like a natural on the bike. And your passenger looks like he could get used to it too! The dumplings, excellent, my mouth is watering.