Yesterday I went with a a few teacher friends on a day trip to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. We began around 6:30 taking a few subway transfers to a special bus. The bus was over an hour late, but we were happy checking out the freakishly orange pollution-y sun and making small talk (or gestures in my case) with a lot of older locals also waiting eagerly for the bus.
We eventually made it onto the bus, which was really nice, and sat in the back. I had fun talking to my friends and watching Beijing slip into a beautiful rural agricultural area full of farmlands. It felt so good to just be getting out of the city. Everything became greener and greener. I did learn that you can't see the Great Wall from space on the bus ride over. So disappointing. The bus made a couple dozen stops along the way. A few black cab drivers tried to hustle us into getting off the bus, but luckily, the friendly group of senior citizens that we befriended at the bus stop had our backs!
We arrived at the Mutianyu site and only paid 6 RMB for the entire trip. We paid less than one American dollar for a two and half hour bus ride. The bottom part of the entrance has the ticket office and lots of people selling their wares to people from all over the world. I enjoyed watching an American family, who were all in American flag tee-shirts, buying the rice paddy hats! We bought our tickets and started the long climb up to the wall.
The climb up to the wall was the hardest part of the walk. It took about a half an hour and was pretty much all staircases with a few places where it was just a hill. The landscape was so gorgeous and my lungs felt like they were on a vacation from the awful Beijing pollution. Marie and I spotted a chipmunk and we investigated a lot of huge, huge insects, but it is nice to know that other animals besides cockroaches live in China!
Once at the top, we were all in a flurry of picture taking and amazement that we were actually on the Great Wall! Nick was the only person who had been to the Wall before, but another, more touristy section. There was still quite a few tourists, but not as many as I would have thought. It probably helped that it was Wednesday and students are all back to school. We spent the next three hours hiking the wall. Most of the walking path is just stairs that are about half the length of my feet, and I was so impressed that I didn't fall! The watchtowers were so beautiful. I spent some time lost in my own world reflecting on the hundreds of thousands of people that died creating the Great Wall. I wonder if any of them thought their life's work would eventually become one of the greatest tourist destinations on the globe thousands of years into the future.
I realize that I was standing on numerous replications of the Great Wall since it has been build and repaired and rebuilt several times over the century, but it was fun thinking about maybe this stone has been here the entire time...
We had fun taking pictures and chatting with some of the other tourists. An older father and son duo from Russia were pretty hysterical. The Russian dad kept slapping the back of his thirty-something son's head when he kept asking if they could stop to drink a beer!
There were a few people selling water and snacks in the shade of the watch towers. We made friends with a man who tried to sell us his donkey for $800 American dollars! We saw an engaged couple and a photographer taking their wedding pictures in advance. They must have taken the cable car on the way up!
I loved being there in the forest with the Great Wall. It felt healing. The weather was really foggy because of the humidity, but it added to the true magic of the day!
The walk back down the stairs was another challenge. There was so many tiny stairs and some huge stairs that took a bit of agility to scamper down. My eyes were more on my feet then the scenery, but it was still nice.
A few people in our group decided that they wanted to take the Toboggan down. Yup, you can Toboggan down the Great Wall! I decided to hike back down with There because it just didn't look too safe. No helmets. We actually got back to start of the hike before our Toboggan-going friends did. They all had a blast going down and Ryan video taped his ride.
We had lunch at a subway sandwich shop, which was delicious. I've been wanting a subway sandwich since I have been here! We sat outside and waited for the last bus out of there.
We were all pretty mellow and tired on the way back into the city, but still had a fun time. The worst part of the trip back was that a few of my fellow passengers spotted a big truck with a huge pile of sheep, living and dead all on top of one another. Luckily, Nick quickly warned me not to look, but we got into a big discussion about whether or not animals have feelings or not as the bus inched itself through Beijing's rush hour traffic.
Marie, Ryan and I said good-bye to the rest of the group to take the subway back to our neighborhood where we had dinner at the delicious restaurant near our apartment complexes. I was so tired and happy after a long day. It was a day that reminded me how indescribably lucky I am to be here.
If you are interested in learning about the section of the Great Wall that I traversed, here is a concise site of information:
http://www.mutianyugreatwall.net/
If you would like to look at all my photos on my facebook album, no need to sign up or anything:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2377962&id=11515731&l=66258a6fbb
woooooooooow.....
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