We Saw it All

Guess what we did today?



Oh my goodness, I still can't believe that I was actually there - I finally saw one of the 7 Wonders :) Four of us took a Greyline bus tour to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. The tour included a stop at the Ming Tombs, and a visit to a jade factory. But first, the wall. Thomas was our able tour guide - a very nice man who spoke great English. He has been working as a tour guide for 20 years:



He was extremely knowledgeable about everything we saw, and clearly very proud of the Chinese history he was telling us about. He told us that the wall that is most commonly known today is the Ming wall, built during the Ming dynasty about 400-500 years ago. It took 1 million people 200 years to build it. To put this number in perspective, China had a population of 6 million at the time, so 1/6 of the population participated in wall building. The wall has existed in various forms for more than 2000 years, and different sections of the wall throughout China provide good examples of the different eras of the wall.

We visited the Badaling section of the wall, which was 1 hour from downtown Beijing, although still technically in Beijing. This section is the most popular with tourists, and the commercial nature of the wall reflects this:


When we got there, Thomas told us that we approximately 90 minutes to climb the wall, although we should be careful, and take our time. I really had no idea what to expect, although I should have guessed by Thomas' earlier quip about "1000 steps...". For those of you who have experienced the Grouse Grind, I now can definitely relate:



The steps on the wall are of varying height and pitch, with some more than a foot tall. That's Emma's back climbing up, in blue:



We climbed up really high - this was the view from our highest vantage point:



There were battlements all along the way, used by archers for fighting the Mongolians trying to get over the Wall:



Here's proof that Emma and I were both actually there:


I don't think you can see the sweat dripping down our faces in this picture, but oh my god, it was steep! What we didn't realize on the way up was that the climb down was almost as hard:


Needless to say, we had the wobbly legs when we finally arrived at the bottom again.

The Ming Tombs were fascinating. The jade factory had gorgeous displays of every kind of jade one could imagine - it was very difficult to curb my impulse to whip out my credit card and buy everything in sight! If we expressed the slightest interest in anything, one of the sales staff would follow us around the store relentlessly. We also saw cloisone being made, and during a weakened state, I bought the most beautiful cloisone vase. Emma also added to her vast souvenir collection.

Drew swims his last event tomorrow - 50 free. Go Drew GO!