Great? It’s an amazing wall!!
Sunday, January 29th, 2006The streets were littered with red fire cracker papers this morning.
Happy New Year. Welcome to the Year of the Dog! Woof!
Went to back to the Taoist Temple Dongyue Si this morning to light some inscence and say hello to a doggy 2006!
Back to the hostel for breakfast and then off to the Great Wall! Take two… Action!
I was picked up from the hostel by a nice young tour operator called Yuko (I think) which is Japanese for snow (don’t ask me why a Japanese name). We walked through the chaos of Spring Festival to meet the driver of the tour bus. Happy New Year everyone! The year of the Dog! Everyone was on their way to the Temple fairs all around Beijing today.
We picked up all in all about 10 of us in all. Yuko gave a nice talk on Beijing and Spring Festival and the Wall. The particular section of the wall we were going to was called Mutianyu.
On the way we stopped off at a factory workshop that makes the opper gilded vases cloisonne (again not sure), was quite interesting but not what I came for. Next stop the wall.
Because we only had such a short time, we took a cable car up to the mountain tops…. I know, very touristic but I’m glad I didn’t walk up and then have less time there.
Wow, it’s amazing! I think it’s something to do with the height at which it is. You can see all around. But also it’s really nicely made. It has been restored but it seems a really simple and clean construction. Click on the links to see the pictures…
Into the distance
A bit of snow
Guard tower
On the way down I almost got forced to by 2 T-shirts I glanced at. Two very persuasive women wouldn’t let me pass until I parted with my money. A bit further along they were selling them for less… typical! Still getting duped!
Really nice day, I think that clean, open space really helped clear the system and freshen me up.
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