Beijing Day 2 ~ The Great Wall

The Great Wall of China, one of the wonders of the world and after seeing it we understand better why it is a wonder.  This wall is built on some really steep and rough ground.  The Chinese name for the wall is Wanli Changcheng which means "very long wall".

We went to the wall with our tour guide Lily, it was about a two hour drive out of the downtown area of Beijing to reach the Mutianyu entrance of the wall.  This entrance has less tourist than the Ba Da Ling entrance.

Don't worry, even with less tourist at this site, the hawkers are out and waiting to try and talk you into buying their goods.

The wall measures 8,850 KM that is 5,499 miles long, we walked a very very short part of the wall for about a  6 mile total walk according to our guide, I am thinking more like 4 miles? 

At the Mutianyu part of the wall you can take a cable car up to the wall and a slide, or cable car back down.

Once you reach the top you will be at tower six.

 We hiked up to tower 14,back to tower six and then Scott and the boys went up to tower one and back to tower six. 

Lily walked with us for a very short way, took a family photo and then waited for us at tower six so we could take our time walking the wall.

The hiking is on rough very uneven hand laid ground with many inclines and declines.  It was slow going but we loved being outside in the cool breeze taking in the views.  Here are some of the many pictures we took on our Great Wall hike.

The wall goes from tower to tower, this is where they kept watch for any attacks that might come their way, they would signal the next tower with smoke by day and fire by night and the message would travel along the tower.  Here we are inside one of the towers.

Like I said the climb can be steep from tower to tower as the wall is built on a mountain ridge.

There are some hawkers at various points along the wall selling hot and cold drinks and of all things, snickers candy bars.  We think they get their stuff up to that point on the wall by hiking and using this guys donkey.

We were grateful for the break and the tea.

We decided this was a perfect spot to get some individual photos, so we did......

More scenery:

The hike up to tower one that Scott and the boys took was even steeper than the hike up to tower 14.

Almost everywhere we go people want a picture with the boys as they are "western" the wall was no exception.

At the bottom when you get off the slide/ cable car, these men are waiting to take a picture with you,  so I took one with them and Caleb, they were grunting and putting on a nice show for the picture.

After I took the picture they said "ok, now you pay the money"  I said "money? you never said anything about money"  well it is a trick they try to play but they laughed and let us go with out payment.

After our trek on the wall we were all tired and very hungry.  Lily took us to a great Chinese place to eat that is close to the wall so we could fill up before our two hour ride back to the hotel.

Here are some street scenes from our ride.

We also drove past the site of the 2008 Olympic Games in China, here is the "Birds Nest" and "Water Cube"

It seems that we are frequently in cities with a lot of wires so here is our wire photo for Beijing.

More street photos

Lily took us to a traditional ChineseTea House for a  tea tasting, it was a perfect time of day for some tea, we really enjoyed it.  The tea house is covered with a very heavy fabric for the door.

There is a large drum outside indicating that it is "safe from harm"

You are escorted into another fabric covered private room with your own private tea lady who tells you all about the teas as you taste them.

It really was fun, we liked the tea and the atmosphere. 

We arrived back at our hotel around 5:30 PM.  After resting for a little while we were ready for some dinner.  We walked around downtown a little while looking for a place to eat but really we were so tired our brains just could not make decisions so we opted for something easy and familiar at the mall close by.

Yes, that is Pizza Hut, and it was good.

We have all decided that our day at The Great Wall was our favorite day in Beijing.