The Great Wall

Monday brought the adventure of the Great Wall. I've learned about it in school and I've seen lots and lots of pictures and heard numerous stories about it....but nothing could have quite prepared me for the glory or enormity of the real thing. Here's a fun fact about me: I'm a horrible tourist. I hate being a tourist and doing touristy things. When I was in England I was tired of castles by castle number 2. When I went to D.C. with my mom I saw enough museums to last me a lifetime. BUT I only hate doing touristy things while I'm doing them. After the fact I appreciate the experience and enjoy the pictures immensely. Now, knowing that about me, you can fully appreciate this statement: I loved every moment of being on the Great Wall. It was one of the coolest and most breath-taking places I have ever been and I'm suuuuuuper excited to go back every time we have visitors. And now, what you have all been waiting for.......*drumroll please*.......pictures:
Chelsie and I on our way to the wall....we're pretty excited about this adventure.

The drive to the wall was pretty cool. It was about an hour long and it was incredible how the scenery went from big city to middle-of-nowhere to small town to little village. We noticed that we were going up up up and felt our ears pop several times. We even saw a guy herding cattle with a whip - something I never thought I would see in real life! I appreciated how "China" this guy was:

When we finally got there….well, let’s just say it was not quite what I was expecting. There were at least a hundred vendor stands – all selling the exact same things: t-shirts and trinkets and paintings and China hats and masks. There was a lot of fruit stands - also selling all the exact same stuff. After we hiked I ended up getting some almonds from one of the stands and they are incredible. Just a little salted and a delicious buttery crunch in the middle...mmmmmmmmmm.

 

I was surprised and a little disappointed to discover that there was a subway restaurant here at the wall. My face has the confusion written all over it….we ended up eating lunch there. Typical.

This thing was really cool – it was a map of this particular section of the wall and a whole description. Pretty interesting stuff. 

And now, on to the hike. Words just can not even explain this hike. Stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs, and even more stairs. As we were hiking my ears were popping because we were going up in elevation so dramatically. When I saw little kids and old people coming down these stairs I just about died. If my parents had brought me here when I was a kid and told me I had to walk all those stairs….I probably would have been left at the bottom with one of the vendors while they went and hiked because I most certainly would have refused. When I finally saw the wall it was like coming to the light at the end of a very very very long tunnel.

The very first set of stairs - little did I know what lay ahead....

He makes it look so easy!

Question: when you think of the Great Wall, what do you think of? If you’re like me, you probably picture a gently sloping flat surface of cobblestone-like material that would be a jolly good time to walk along and have a chat with a friend and appreciating the scenery. And if your thinking is like mine was….you couldn’t be more wrong. I thought I was done with stairs once I got to the actual wall, but I was sorely mistaken. I can’t even imagine building this wall – the stairs were uneven, crooked, slanting, sometimes just non-existent, different heights and shapes, steep, 2 inches to 2 feet high, etc. Some sections of the wall were so steep you could lean forward reeeeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyyy far without falling over. To be brief, let me just say that if you could jog just a small portion of the wall a few times a week you would be in most excellent (said with an English drawl) shape. Tina and I eventually made a game of it and ran up and down several sets of stairs. She’s a firefighter and I’m an out-of-shape rugby player so you can guess who won those races. Me. Duh. Haha NOT.  

Proof: I was there!

Hello stairs

These kind of looked like one of those eye-trick pictures where all the stairs go the same direction but they never end and there's like a thousand staircases.....

How far can you lean without falling over? Pretty far.

More stairs

Big stairs

Seen enough pictures of stairs? Me too. So let's move on to some cool scenery. The guard towers were pretty interesting. I really liked how to windows looked out to the mountains. It was a really foggy day and that made it extra mystical and old-world feeling. It was absolutely beautiful. The wall stretched as far as I could see (which, admittedly, wasn't very far due to the fog) and it was just green green green all around. 

Probably my favorite picture of the day

Love the watchtowers in the distance

Does it get any cooler?!?

Trap door leading to the top of a watchtower

 Chinese people's stereotypical pose is the peace sign; Americans do the jumping thing:

All those stairs were tiring; I had to "dig deep" and made sure to check my pulse to, as Shuan T would say, "make sure it was safe" (Abbo, this quote is for you).

Tina and I needed a break so we had a seat and took a little breather......

Tina had this brilliant idea. She was convinced that she could hoist me up far enough that I could climb onto the top of one of the guard towers. Here is the flawless execution, step by step:

The initial boost

She said "step on my shoulder"....so I did. Hey, she's a firefighter - she does this for a living.

She makes it look fun

Chelsie: "T, turn and look at me" Me: "Not really possible right now" Tina: "Sure it is" .....I guess it was possible...kinda

Shocked and amazed

Check us out!

Once atop the tower Tina said "hmmm she was really light" and Chelsie's mom said "that's probably because you're used to doing that with men" and we all busted out laughing. Probably for different reasons. You may be wondering if I actually climbed onto the tower with Tina's help.....and I'm just going to let you decide what to believe. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.

The one decent picture of all 4 of us on the wall:

We took the toboggan down and were greeted with this sign at the top and these lovely men at the bottom:

I appreciate this dotice. A notice would have been more helpful though.

Suuuuuuuper excited and clearly exhausted haha

After we took our pictures with them they said "money" and rubbed their fingers at us. I gave them 5 kuai and they responded by asking for 40! I told them no way and walked away. Chelsie's mom kept saying we should just delete these pictures because they were bad karma. We'll see.

Once at the bottom we took a bathroom break and then launched into some serious haggling for souvenirs. Some of the vendors were fun to bargain with and some were just obnoxious. I got many presents that I'm excited to send home but since I can't post pictures of those, here's my favorite purchase that I made for myself:

Most people on the wall were dressed appropriately or at least somewhat comfortably. These two women, however, must have called each other up and agreed to wear the most ridiculous outfits possible....

Exhausted and famished, we headed back to our driver who kindly took us to the feast that we had reserved our places for in advance (not that we needed to - we were the only ones there). You see, Monday was the celebratory day of Mid-Autumn festival where the Chinese celebrate Huoyi - the heroic archer who shot down 9 of the 10 suns and saved the earth from burning up. The place we went to was really cool - it was off the beaten path in a little village in an old-fashioned traditional home. The food was pretty good, the company was great, and the chance to sit and just relax after a day of climbing and sweating was divine.  

Are those walnuts for eating or for decoration? Chelsie's mom casually cracked and ate one and we almost died laughing as she spit it back up, saying "I just don't trust it, it could be decoration"

We learned that these cellars were in all the houses, either underground or dug into the mountain. The people use them to keep produce and meat cool.

These are the walnuts! The were very pokey, like a cactus

 

After all was said and done, this was one of the best days I have had in China by far. I can't wait for more people to come visit so we can go to the wall again!