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Today
was the day! The day were were going to visit the Great Wall. We missed out on it last time, so we
had great expectations. We always think of it as one wall, but in fact the
6400km long wall was built during different dynasties, to stop barbarians from
the north attacking China. The best preserved parts of the wall were built
during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), in order to prepare for an expected
invasion from the Mongolian general Xu Da. This wall was built further south
than the original wall during the Qin and Han dynasties. The Ming wall was
generally built of stone, which was more durable than the stamped earth that was
used on the earlier walls. The average height of the Ming wall is roughly 8
meters, and its average width is 7 meters at the bottom and 6 meters at the top.
We
drove to the section of the wall that is closest to Beijing,
at Badaling. Badaling means "in every direction", and it got its name due to this portion of
the walls strategic position in a valley surrounded by mountains in all
directions. We drove past a half built amusement
park that had run out of money (so there are limits to the money supply, even in
China!). The Wall really is an unbelievable sight as you see it stretch into
the horizon. Yanmei loved walking (or more often being carried) up the steps, and
managed to go further than anybody else in the group. Saturday certainly wasn't the best
day to make the trip, as the wall was packed with Chinese and foreign
tourists (Helle met somebody she worked with - what a coincidence). We only had
an hour, and I suppose unless you're thinking of going on a longer expedition,
an hour is enough - it's pretty tiring walking up all those steps - and hard
walking down again. It was well worth the visit, and now
we can say that we’ve walked on the wall!
On
the way to the wall we stopped off at a jade factory and on the way back at a pearl factory
where not least the girls were very very interested
when the guide opened a shell to show the 30+ pearls inside. Each got a  mini-pearl just
out of its shell.
We had lunch on the 11th floor of some hotel, called the Grand (we think)
– again very mediocre and certainly not "Grand".
Back
at the hotel and we had an early afternoon swim in the pool – even Steven participated.
This was our last day in Beijing, tomorrow we were on the road again. We wonder
what Yanmei was thinking - would she be jealous (as we expected), would they get on. Time would
tell!
We
went for a late afternoon walk to the World Trade Centre – ca. 1km to the left
of the hotel. This is yet another shopping centre with lots of expensive shops
and even an ice-skating rink; but not a lot of shoppers. We bought a few things at a
supermarket before eating a slightly better dinner at the Chinese restaurant in
the hotel.
Unfortunately we were too late for cakes.
NEXT
DAY (27th)
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