This post will most definitely be my favorite just because this part of the trip was the favorite part for both Matthew and I. After meeting with our tour group and having a traditional Chinese dinner family style we set off the next day for the Great Wall. We took a bullet train north to a lesser known portion (to the tourist crowd anyway) of the wall. This first half that we went to was in what our tourist guide, Micheal, called a small town in China. He also said that this small town had a population of about 6 million! Yeah if that is a small town in China I don't want to live there! :)
We took a bus from the train station to our hotel where we unpacked and got settled in. Soon we were off to the Great Wall! This section was practically empty of any tourist groups besides our own! It was a blessing to be able to take our time walking up to the wall because it took me quite a while to get to the top.
There were stairs after stairs and I am pretty sure I took at least 20 breaks on the way to the top. Thank heavens for my wonderful husband pushing me and encouraging me on the whole way.
Taking one of many breaks.
The stairs just kept on going and they ranged from being short steps to really long, tortuous on the calves steps.
But there were some pretty sights to see on the way up, even with the layer of smog and slow moving rain storm.
Getting really close to the top!
Finally we made it! I felt like Rocky when I finally breached that summit! And we were rewarded with some pretty awesome views of the mountains, valleys and small farms at the bottom of the wall's boarders.
We were able to stop at about 4 of the outposts along the way and climb up to the top. These post were where the solders would sleep when they weren't standing guard or walking along their section of the wall.
Absolutely breath-taking
We spent about 2 hours total climbing up and walking along the wall before we started to head back down. It was a lot easier and faster walking down to the valley at the bottom of the wall than it was walking up.
This is Micheal, our local tour guide. He was pretty awesome and always smiling and willing to help.
Our group walking along the narrow walkway on the top of the Great Wall!
The bump on the wall! One day I will be able to tell our baby girl that she was on the Great Wall of China when she was still safe inside me! :)
And here is our group (minus 2 people who couldn't attend the wall climb). These are the people that Matthew and I became friends with over the course of our trip to China. There are people here from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We were the only Americans on the trip.
After this section of the wall we went back to our hotel and were able to relax a little before another group meal for dinner. We ate another traditional Chinese meal for both dinner that night and breakfast at the hotel the next morning. We took a tour of a small village inside the great wall and saw how a lot of people in China's small towns live.
The next day we went to a more touristy part of the Great Wall. We were all less than impressed after the experience that we had the previous day. The renovated section of the Great Wall that we went to was the part that extends out into the ocean. It looked like any other modern style brick/stone structure that you could fine in many other parts of the world. But here it is:
This is another section that they built as a temple off the side of the wall.
The look of the wall as it extends into the ocean.
Sharing a kiss at the end of the Great Wall behind a sign that we have no idea what it says! :)
There was a percussion band playing on the wall so we got a little show out of it.
They also had a maze mad out of the same stone for all the tourist that wanted to try it.
And that was the end of our tour of the Great wall. We walked a lot those couple of days but that was just the start of our tour and the beginning of our walking adventures.
Next up will be some pictures of the small village that we toured and then our trip to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors.
Thanks for reading!
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