The Great Wall

I've gotten word that I should post more pictures to the blog, so I'll share a few from my visit to The Great Wall.

I went to the wall with a group of the Chinese undergraduate students and one of their younger siblings -- a 16 year old girl with seemingly boundless energy, who I would later dub "monkey" (more on this in a moment).

Mutianyu, the section of the Great Wall we visited, is about 40 miles northeast of the city. This section apparently does not enjoy/suffer quite the same swarms of tourists that other, closer locations do, but Mutianyu still gets its fair share of tourists. In fact, one of the more notable visitors was President Clinton in 1998, which of course is prominently highlighted with large, fairly unflattering photos of him climbing into one of the cable cars that ferry people up to the wall. (It was the middle of June, he was pretty sweaty and wearing a dark shirt. I'll refrain from describing it in gory detail...)

We left the city early and arrived at the base of the mountain (the wall was built along the ridge of the mountain) around 10 a.m. Looking up towards the wall, I was ready to follow Old Bill's lead, and hop on a cable car, but my crew didn't seem too interested in that option.

So, up we trekked. And up. And up. Even once we made it onto the wall (whew!), there was still plenty of up and down -- as the wall follows the undulating mountain ridge. It was here that the younger sister showed us all up -- running up ahead and back again, over and over, gleefully reporting on the upcoming sights. The fact that she was born in the year of the monkey and loves bananas (relishing in the dried banana chips I brought) just cemented her nickname for me. [She's on the left in the picture above.]



It was a bit overcast on the day we visited but the views were still amazing (though, of course, my camera doesn't do them justice). Green rolling hills for miles and the wall snaking into the distance.

After a full day of walking (6 hours later), we took a cable car back DOWN the hill. Which seemed a bit backwards to me, but I didn't complain.