The Great Wall of China

Hi guys! Look Mom and Abby, that purse really comes in handy :) It can hold a book, my camera, my (small amount of) money, AND 3 bottles of water. Speaking of books: I finished the Lord of the Rings last night! It didn't take me quite 5 years...



So on Sunday morning I set out from my apartment after a whopping 3 hours of sleep. I managed to get myself on the subway in the right direction and change lines when necessary. Then came the trickier part. I had to find the bus station. Once there I had to differentiate between the buses, all labeled 919, which were headed on different trips, several of which were the Wall. I was going with 7 other people, and for a while I was afraid I wouldn't find them because the meeting location chosen was, as usual, too vague. Also, my pre-paid cell phone had run out of money the night before, so I couldn't contact anyone. (Grumble grumble. When I bought it they told me it would last me the summer.) Eventually we all found each other, and there was great rejoicing.



Well, sortof. So many groups I join seem to contain at least one easily annoyed person. Sigh. There was widespread but not unanimous rejoicing. Anyways! Who we were: 8 current or recently graduated MIT students, some working in Beijing, some just passing though on their graduation victory trip. Our Chinese skills ranged from completely fluent to absolutely none. Our opinions on what to do about transportation were varied, but after much commotion we all got on a 919 bus to the Ju Yong Guan pass of the Long Wall (as the Chinese literally translates.)



(Speaking of 9s and 1s. The emergency number here is 119 instead of 911. Odd.)



And we learned what it was to take a Chinese tourist bus. First a guy talked on the loudspeaker (just loudly and piercingly enough that it ruled out sleep and reading.) Granted, it was an interesting and sometimes amusing speech about the history of the wall and such. But it was difficult to understand and long. Then we stopped at 'the reststop' which was actually a jade factory. They took us on a really cool museum tour of jade, hosted in a nifty cave-like area. Then we got to see people on the other side of glass windows working with the jade. Then I wandered away from a sales pitch. And then we had the opportunity to buy a bunch of jade. There were also supplies of snacks, water, and toilet paper to buy. (The provided toilets didn't have paper. Finally the pack of tissues in the bottom of my purse comes in handy.) Later in the day, when we were returning from the Wall, we would stop at a supermarket known to the operators of the bus line. Apparantly planning these unannounced and relatively involved stops on bus trips is a relatively common Chinese thing.



Anyways, we arrived at the wall. Half of us stayed near the bottom for the guided temple tour and the other half headed up. The first thing we saw was a long chain with many locks.



Couples put these locks on when they get married. In many cases their names and the date are engraved on the lock. The tradition seems to have caught on with tourists; the couple of locks I looked at featured distinctly non-Chinese names.



This is the best-maintained portion of the Wall. If I get the chance, I might go to another section later in the summer. Perhaps because this section is so well-restored, many people on both extremes of the age spectrum were about. Of course, as we climbed higher people of all ages became less dense. We lost Sarah partway up to a threatening migraine. A stranger later gave her some sort of herbal Chinese medicine smelling of eucalyptus.

As you can see below, there were a bunch of towers along the length of the wall.

Getting up to them was fun. The stairs were very steep, and in some cases worn away except on the sides. These particular stairs shown below weren't terribly worn, just steep. Of course, being a walking tourist attraction, I had to take a few pictures with random strangers. (I don't know him. \/ )
Eventually we achieved the highest peak. The wall led up to here (this picture's taken from the last tower), then retraced its steps and went off in another direction. But there wasn't time for that. We headed back down the way we came and found the other 5 MIT students (including Sarah) at a plateau maybe 1/3 of the way up. Then, on the bus ride back, we stopped at aforementioned supermarket.



And I bought corn flavored ice cream. Which was sweet and corny and strange.



And then I went home and took half a cold shower, finished The Lord of the Rings, contemplated life (but did not omphaloskepsize), and fell asleep early.