Sat Aug 16 – The Great Wall, part 1

Finally, our day came to go the Great Wall – one of the anticipated highlights of the entire trip. We got up and again jogged. I am so proud and excited to run with Emily – I love that she has taken up running and love to finally have a common activity with one of my children. It’s fun to do it with Emily and she can go the entire distance. She’s doing great and I challenged her to consider running Robie Creek next year.

We met our guide at 8:30, and this time were part of a group of about 15 in our own bus. The tour books said the trip to the wall would take about 2 hours, but we got there in about 1 hour 15 minutes. The guide explained that there are many different sections of the wall that are open to tourists in Beijing, but that we were going to the oldest section which had been closed for the Olympic cycling races until yesterday. The mountains in that area are very pretty. They are covered in greenery and very steep and hilly. As we drove in the mountains, the Wall could be seen “snaking around” the tops and sides of many visible places. We got to our destination and found ourselves surrounded by thousands of people with the same idea. I knew this would be a very crowded day – Saturday morning during the Olympics – so I was already prepared for that. I was also happy to see that our guide, once we got into the Wall area, simply gave us a time to meet back at the bottom and let us go “exploring” on our own. There were two sides to go – Emily and I chose the steeper and less crowded side. The day again was very clear and not smoggy – which was great. At the beginning the sun was direct and it started getting pretty hot – but soon the clouds came and the winds blew – so it was a nice climb. It was pretty amazing to climb along the Great Wall that I’ve seen so many times in pictures, books, and TV. It was very steep in places, and even though I am in shape, it was quite an exercise. No one told me a towel was a required element – but I sure could have used one. They warned us about some of the very steep parts – which was true. But both Emily and I soon realized that the most dangerous part of “climbing the wall” was trying to avoid all of the open umbrellas by the Chinese women and children. They were downright dangerous! Since the sun was out, many children and women were walking with their open umbrellas – and they are not careful. Emily got “jabbed” about 5 times. The children had an uncanny ability to hold their umbrellas right about eye level, and whip them around any time.