Goodness, Gracious, Great Wall of China!

This past weekend was the Mid-Autumn Festival, which meant that we had Monday off of work. Our goal this year was to take advantage of seeing China and not just using it as a launching pad for other things. Time to check off the "Great Wall of China" box on our list of things to do. And, not just the "I got the shirt and rode the toboggan" kind of visit. I'm talking the "I don't think we should tell our moms" kind of visit. Wee!!

Here's the breakdown:

Mark and I, with our friends Brian and Anja, left school on Friday afternoon and got to experience the glory of waiting at the Shanghai South Train Station until we boarded our overnight train to Beijing. We had a room with four beds to ourselves and arrived in Beijing at about 7:30 AM. (Heads up for future travelers: the dining car only had water and snacks, including a vacuum-sealed bag of chicken wings. We, luckily, had ordered bagels to bring with us on the trip and had the first of many PB&J bagel sandwiches.)

Man raisins?!

Our driver, Bruce, picked us up at the train station, took us to 7-11 to buy water, and then drove us two hours to the Jian Kuo area. After agreeing to meet him at 4:30 PM to pick up our sleeping gear, off we set up the mountain to reach the first tower.

Glimpses of the Wall through the trees 

From the top, looking to where we're going

Here we go!

Looking back at the first tower that we started from. 

Also a little friend that was following us for awhile!

How nice of the builders to provide stairs!

Again, looking back at where we started - the top-most point. 

Uh oh!  The wall disappeared! What to do?

Thanks, Mark. :o)

I'll have you know, most of my rock "scrambling" was done one-handed because I was holding my camera with my other hand. 

The best part. Not sure why the others were worried. I thought it was just fine!

Just a relaxing stroll through one of the great wonders of the world. 

No joke, one of the coolest things we've ever done. A turn around and back the way we came had us meet up with Bruce at the first tower. A car ride, a language-barrier-induced disagreement, and a mad scramble uphill through thorny brush with a villager brought us to the paved walkway that parallels the toboggan track. Puffing our way up a zillion steps, we chose tower 8 of Mu Tian Yu for our sleeping quarters. 

I was pretty beat, but definitely appreciated the change of clothes!

Check out our new dorm room!

It was obnoxious to carry, but the thick exercise mats really helped making our night loads comfier. Not to mention my sleeping pill. :o)  I was completely beat up from the day, but I cannot sleep on rocks!

Breakfast! And another hazy day.

As you can tell Mu Tian Yu is restored wall, as opposed to JianKuo being "wild wall." You can take a bus to the town, a chair lift OR gondola up to the wall, and toboggan down. That is not to say this part is easy. Not one bit. We're talking a ga-zillion stairs and pretty gnarly inclines. 

Another friend!

Here's the fun part: see the light line going up in the right third of the picture??

That's this 40 degree angle of stairs in front of us. 

We counted. On the way down at least. 453, if you were wondering.

View from the top!

I wish it was a clearer day, but what a blessing to be alone on the Great Wall of China. The way back included other visitors showing up and quite a few protests from our knees and ankles. We were really looking forward to tobogganning down with camping gear, but it was closed due to the moisture. From the chairlift, it looked really fun though!

We found Bruce back at the bottom. A nap in the car back to Beijing, a shower at a hotel that rhymes with "Share-ee-ott" by "going to the pool," and back to the train station. We opted for the "express train," though that still took five hours.

I can't tell you how nice it was to sleep in a bed on Sunday night! 

All in all, a highlight for sure. And in such a short amount of time! 

Now where did I put that IcyHot?