Top: Climbing one of the steeper parts, although not the steepest
Middle: Scenery near the corner of a watch tower
Bottom: View east through a watch tower window almost back to where we started
I avoided Tian An Men Square completely today. Why go where there are even more people than usual, especially since I had something more interesting to me to do. Today was Great Wall Day. When the alarm went off at 7.00 this morning I was not ready to wake up. However I obeyed its call and then heard the rain coming down. My window opens into the space between two buildings, about 2 metres of space. And it is a completely enclosed space. To service the utility connections (which is all that seems to be in this space) one must go through the hotel and come out the back door. What would the rain mean for the intended trip? I would have to wait to find out.
After I got ready to go out I walked across the street to the Dia Market and bought an umbrella, my first umbrella. It is a lovely (?) blue and greeny-gray tartan collapsing umbrella. Anyway, it kept my dry in my walk for some breakfast. Going West along DaZhaLan I heard the calls of one restauranteur trying to bring in business in the rain. Of course she was doing the same thing yesterday in the heat and probably in January in the cold. This place is another example of commerce taking over living space. The steamer was set up outside on a charcoal stove on one of the steps out the front. The restaurant consisted of five tables with four chairs each. I had ten bao zi for Y7. It cost me more for a cup of tea at the hotel.
The rain stopped sometime around 9.00 - 9.30. My host her friend and I arranged to meet at the DongZhiMen Bus Terminal about 30 minutes away from the hotel. We then travelled on what I would call an inter-urban or inter-suburban bus to pick up a fourth person. Then we took an unlicensed cab to the MuTianYu village access to the Great Wall, after negotiating a price for the trip. The driver asked if we wanted him to wait. We said no thank you, there were lots of drivers eager to take us if he left. It turned out he did hang around, or at least he was around when we finished on the Wall, and he even waited for us to have a late afternoon lunch and then took us back to the fourth person's neighbourhood.
The Wall is Great in every sense of that word. Even in its current state it is truly a marvel of human endurance and engineering. Quite recently some civil engineers discovered the mortar holding the bricks together is reasonably ordinary mortar except for the addition of sticky rice to the mix. It is not visible from space, a myth apparently started in the 1930s according to the Lonely Planet Guide to Beijing. It is not only a marvellous engineering marvel it is also exceedingly picturesque. In the days when it was a military fortification there would have been no large vegetation within many kilometres of the Wall. Now the vegetation grows in the cracks between the bricks. Even in the short section I walked the incline and the depths of the steps change dramatically, sometimes within a few metres. Some places had a low incline and steps only a few centimeters deep. One particular section had steps set about 75 degrees of slope and about 50cm high (more than half way up my leg to my knee). I had already managed to do considerable climging and my knees were screaming at me. So I let the other three climb up that section and go on to at least the next watch tower.
In order to get to the access point for the Wall one has to go up, since the Wall was built on the highest parts of the land. There are two ways up and three ways down: cable car and chair lift (the same as ski hills) are both up and down. For the more adventurous there is a toboggan ride down. We wanted to see the part of the Wall that the chair lift when to, so we took the chair lift. About ten seconds into the ascent I wanted to get off. It re-activated my struggle with heights. I either cannot go near the edge of a high place or I am afraid if I get near the edge I will try to fly off. I know it is all mental and I can control it somewhat. Seeing the ground drop away as I rode on a wooden seat with a few metal rods holding me in nearly made me loose my control. Fortunately I was with someone I could talk to and our conversation helped me a great deal. I went down on the chair lift with my host, who has a similar problem with heights. We both survived although our legs were a little shaky after we got off. The other two took the toboggans down. The toboggan slide is an arc of a metal cylinder which winds its way down from the top. The user sits on a plastic with a brake handle between the legs. Next time I will go to a part of the Wall I can walk to and walk away from.
After the "walk" on the Wall, we had a late lunch at a Western -style restaurant in the village. It is called The Schoolhouse and is recommended in at least one guide. It is worth going to if you are in the neighbourhood. I had pumpkin soup and cold noodles with juliened cold chicken and vegetables in a creamy sesame sauce. It seemed to me to be the dish on the menu closest to Asian cooking. Others had risotto, fish and chips and club sandwich and chips. The chips (french fries to some) were wonderful. I had only one and wished the leftovers had stayed on the table for another few minutes. There was a wonderful appetizer in the Chinese style: little (2-3 cm diamater) biscuits with shredded seaweed in the dough accompanied by garlic pickled in black vinegar and oil. The idea was to split the the biscuit, put one or two garlic cloves inside and then munch on this miniature sandwich. I could probably manage to pickle garlic but it would take me a lot of practice to make biscuits anything like what we had today.
After lunch we picked up our driver who took us back into the suburb of Beijing where my host's friend lived. He picked up the remnants of his belongings and came with us on the inter-urban bus. He was meeting friends for a good-bye party tonight, then doing a two week tour of parts of China before heading home to Scotland. He said he is ready to go home.
We had a quiet ride on the way back to Beijing, I took the subway back to QianMen station and walked to the hotel. On the way I picked up some tea and some water to make tea. My supper tonight was a few fried fava beans, a Fuji apple and a few cups of green tea.
Now I will find out if I can upload the notes for today and the earlier ones to the right place: professortravels at blogspot dot com. And I need to select a few pictures from my growing collection just in case I have access. Tommorrow Bei Hai Park and / or Jing Chan Park. My host is working until 5.30pm so I will explore on my own, carrying a map and the cell phone in my pockets just in case.
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