We climbed the Great Wall of China!

This was a pretty incredible day for me.  Not only did I get eight hours of sleep, but I got to fulfill a longing to see one of the great wonders of the world.  We hiked on the Great Wall!

As we did yesterday, breakfast at the hotel was early (7am) followed by meeting Oscar in the hotel lobby.

This was the view from the restaraunt.  The government is building a subway station under the front of the hotel.  We heard the cement trucks coming late into the night.

On our way to the Great Wall, we passed by the crazy shaped office building again.

Once we got out of the business district, we started to see 'real' China.  Rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of housing that looks like this.  From what I can gather, more and more wealthy, affluent people are moving into Beijing, forcing out some of the middle-class folks, who now have to live on the outskirts and commute back in to find work.  Just like America, the rich are getting richer, the poor are having to move out of their way.....

Uh-oh!  I wonder if the truck driver knows he's back there???

About 5 miles from the base of the mountain we pulled in, abeit unexpectedly, to a jade maket.  It was at this point I realized that I was expected to do some shopping: we got out of the car and I was standing in a herd of tourists. Jade is pretty, and it's interesting how they make it, but I was again put into the position of being expected to purchase something.  This was our high-pressure personal salesperson, and the bracelet she put on my wrist was so tight she had to use a bag to put it on and take it off.  She kept telling me to 'relax' and let it slide on, but she doesn't realize that my big American just hand doesn't fit!  (ouch!)

Okay, this was really impressive!  Made totally out of jade, with pliable chains and figurines carved with amazing details.  (This could be all yours for the bargain price of $50,000!)

We got back in the car, and drove toward the Great Wall.

Oscar gave us some the history about the Great Wall, but waited for us at the bottom.

The Great Wall of China!  WOW!  I'm not coming back down until I reach the top!

Best climbing partner ever! 

There is a tradition of placing a brass lock with a red ribbon tied to it on the Great Wall to symbolize unity and fidelity.  Many married couples (and adoptive families!) have placed locks on the chain at the bottom of the Great Wall over the past few decades.  Many are engraved with names and dates.

Heading up!  You can see how steep these steps are, and how high it is to go from riser to riser.  It was the best leg workout I've had in over a year!

Reaching the first guard tower meant having a quick break from the stair-climbing.  I was surprised at how quickly I got winded, but we were at quite a high altitude.

The stairs weren't as steep the further we got toward the top.

The Great Wall was started 3,000 years ago as a way for the Huns to protect themselves from the Mongolians.  It was built over centuries.  The Beijing pass (Bataling) was build last, about 500 years ago it was completed.  There are parts that have almost completely disintegrated, but this portion of the wall was restored by the Chinese government so that visitors may climb up it.  This means that patchwork has been done with concrete in some areas, as you can see on this wall leading up.

This pagoda was only accessable by foot trail.  I used zoom to get this photo, it was quite far away from the Great Wall, but very beautiful.

If you are climbing the Great Wall during a severe thunderstorm, you have got bigger problems than just your cell phone.  I'm just thinking out loud here.....

Now we're getting pretty close to the top!



The guard towers near the top were pretty well decorated.

The ancient Chinese were tiny people!



The final push to get to the top!  (Feel the burn!)  Step!  Step!!  Step!!!

Looking down from the top....  Wow!!!

We made it!

The view was absolutely spectacular, and in the distance we could hear a magpie (bird) singing.  It was everything I had hope it would be, and then some.

 

Climbing up (and down) from the turrets on the top of the highest guard tower was treacherous and scary, like going up and down a ladder with warped and greased rungs.  But I did NOT come all the way here to wimp out!

Going back down provided a new view of the wall, but it was bittersweet.  It means that my time here was over halfway gone, and this was such a big day for both of us.

There were several different languages we heard spoken during our climb and descent, but one thing was universal: if you were handed a camera, you took a picture for the other person.  We exchanged cameras several different times today, and ended up with quite a few nice photos together.

I missed this sign on the way up.  I thought it was pretty funny.  So I suppose that coronary artery disease or a brain anuerysm aren't automatic disqualifiers if you pay for your entry ticket, as long as you take it easy.

This is Matt's mean "Hun warrior" face.

Goodbye, Great Wall!  I will miss you!



On our way through the parking lot, back to our car, I saw this ultra-cool taxi cab.

Next we were taken to a government tourist restaraunt, where the food was overpriced and as bland as you can get and still be palatable.  I think it was expected that all tour guides (licensed and instructed by government) to take all foreigners visiting the Great Wall.  Matt and I called it the "causasian cafeteria". 

Next on today's agenda was a Hutong Tour. 

Rickshaws



Photo of our car this week, and our driver (Mr. Jiu), as our rickshaw went by.

I couldn't get this photo to flip sideways, so you'll have to excuse my amateur blog mistake.

 Hutongs were neighborhoods (districts) of government officials who worked for the Emperor of China in the Forbidden City.  These homes are hundreds of years old, and are still inhabited by descendants of the original families.  The streets are very narrow, and bike traffic is most common.  Although many of the buildings have had to be partially reconstructed, they are largely identical to the original structures.  This district was just outside of the north wall of the Forbidden City.



Some hutong spaces have been converted into shops, from which to buy daily goods. 

Some have even been turned into pubs.  Something for everybody.

Lily, our guide, took us into one of the occupied hutongs to show us what it looks like.



This is the marital bed.  The sign behind it, in the window, is the sign for 'double happiness'.  Marriages were arranged until just a few decades ago, so the groom and the bride would not meet face to face until the wedding day. Red was the color of fortune.  To add to the suspense, the bride wore a red veil over her face until the wedding ceremony was completed, so I guess the bridegroom couldn't back out of the deal.

Surprise!

This is a photo of the kitchen. The kitchen and the servant's quarters are always on the south side of the hutong central square, which is the 'outdoor' part that connects to the road by a wooden gate.



View of the kitchen door from the outside.  By the way, this is the year of the rabbit.  The Chinese will tell you that they are very superstitious.  They take meaning from a lot of seemingly unrelated occurances.  There are many things that are auspicious or lucky.  Garlic, as you see here, on the outside of the door, brings good fortune.  (And FYI, never stick your chopsticks into your bowl of ride and leave them there, it means someone there is going to die.)

There is a lot of feng shui involved in the hutong design.  Think of a hutong residence like this: a wooden door leading from the street to a small courtyard that once used to have a garden or house animals.  On  the north side of the courtyard there was the marital bedroom (water), on the east side is the bedroom for the boys (earth), and on the west side the girls slept (metal), and the south side was always used for servants (fire).  Because fire (work) and water (wealth) battled each other, the children or family members of the hutong could never inhabit the south side, even if the family did not have servants.  They used it for storage if anything else.

The hutongs of today are still very small and very basic.  Most have been repaired and retrofitted for sink plumbing, but residents still have to walk down the street to use the public toilet as hutongs do not have plumbing for the toilets.  Many children of the younger generations today choose to move out to an apartment in the modern sections of the city, but the elderly still prefer to live close to one another and will often meet in a nearby park in the mornings and evenings for checkers, mahjong or tai chi.

This was our guide, Lily.  She was awesome!  She moved to Beijing from Harbin two years ago after graduating with a tourism degree.  She was excited to hear that we were headed to Harbin tomorrow.

After we left the hutong, we stopped at a bank and waited for a painfully long time to exchange our US dollars to Chinese yuan (RMB).  Then our guide, Oscar, and our driver, Mr. Jiu, delivered us safely back to the hotel.  Matt and I weren't done with our Beijing tour, though, and did a little self-tour around our area, which is Third Ring Road.  Beijing is centered around the Forbidden City and the government buildings near it.  The city moved out away from that in shockwaves, and the road structure is arranged in rings around it.  We are staying on the third shockwave out, out of six rings so far.  There are plans to build more as Beijing continues to sprawl out farther and farther.  They are building here like crazy.

What Matt and I both still wanted to see is what everyday life was like in this city.  So we hit the sidewalks with our camera for 2 hours, and this is what we saw.

One thing I found rather amusing is that the common way to wear a backpack is to have it hanging in the front.  I'm not sure if it's a comfort thing, or a way to keep people from getting into it secretly while you are walking (which is smart when you're in such a big crowd), but it always makes me smile because to me it looks quite silly, like a bunch of young men and women who look like pregnant women.

We wanted to see Beijing without sugar coating.  We wanted to see it, smell it, and hear it, and absorb everything about it that makes it unique.

 A view of our hotel from the opposite street corner, with barriers up for the subway construction.

Strreet interections freaked me out.  There is no cross walk and no happy little white guy blinking at you from a box perched on a pole telling you when to cross.  You find a spot and run for it.  All the years I spent playing Frogger paid off, but with mere inches between cars and people competing with bikes to space in between those cars, and everything moving fast, it was intimidating!  We learned quickly to just stick to another group of locals crossing in the same direction, they know what they are doing!

This small group of shacks occupied a street corner, which to us looked like housing for the desperate.  A few yards down the sidewalk, on that side, above the noise of honking horns, car engines, construction, and conversation, we heard a toddler screaming "Mama! Mama!" We looked over there and saw a toddler running frantically in both directions looking for his mama.  We both froze and looked all over for an adult who was coming to his rescue, but to no avail.  Part of me wonders if he was dropped off on the side of the road, or if his parents forgot about him.  By the time the traffic cleared, we couldn't see him or hear his voice again, but the tears in my eyes were welling up and my Mama-heart was breaking. 

It was starting to get dark, so we walked to the other side of the hotel, to the business and hotel district, and climbed on the pedestrian bridge to get this photo of Third Ring Road.  It's as congested as Los Angeles traffic, believe me! 

Neighboring hotel.

This is a common way for people to get goods from one place to another if they do not have a car.  These bike-carts are everywhere, and they fold right in with the erratic Beijing traffic.

We stopped at a gas station market next to the hotel before turning in for the night, and I finally got to practice my mandarin language.  With no English-speaking tour guide around to help me out, I handled it all by myself.  What a confidence booster!  Thank you, Yi Ling!  All of your time spent teaching me has not been in vain!  xie xie!

So there you have it, another wonderful day in one of the world's largest and most populous cities.  Matthew and I are loving it here, but are also looking forward to getting on a train (early!) tomorrow morning and heading up to Harbin so we can finally hold our son in our arms.