Day 2: The Great Wall and Lunch at the Jade Store

The driver made his way through the hutong alleys, and we were on our way to the Great Wall. It has long been a dream of mine to see and climb the Great Wall, so I was very excited about our trip..

Everyone was on their way north to the Wall. The traffic was horrendous, despite the fact that we left by 8:30 for the 45 minute trip. We were surrounded by fully loaded tourist buses. Suzie looked out the window and said "Big noses! Did you know we call Westerners Big Noses?" I could honestly say I had never heard that name, but it certainly made me feel MY big nose!

The wall begins to come into view long before you get to the tourist stop. It is simply beautiful and totally amazing...and it was never used. You can see the guard houses, the lantern houses, and the rest stops if you look very closely. I found the Chinese artists, architects, mathematicians, writers, you name it, to be simply amazing over the thousands of years of the dynasties existence. I think Westerners are quite oblivious to their accomplishments because the "Heavenly Kingdom" was kept so isolated.

Suzie chose to take me to Bandaling, the most famous part of the re-opened Wall. When we arrived, we realized that special guests had caused the closure of one of the Wall walkways. Shiny black limos with blackened windows were lined up in front of the Tourist Center, along with police and Red Army cars...quite an entourage. Suzie bought my ticket and we started to climb. It is an incredibly STEEP walk, and I was being shoved, punched, and pushed by all the Chinese tourists. There were some incredibly MEAN old ladies on that walk, and I could barely hold on to the rail and walk!! I am NOT a wuss...I walk at least 3-4 miles every morning...Suzie kept telling me to slow down, but I am always in fast forward...UNTIL the locals began beating up on me. I made it to the first enclosure, but gave up any thought of walking higher. You can see in the pictures the walkway forward was totally filled up by visitors at 10 AM.

We walked back "down," and Suzie took my picture by the Memorial Rock that has Mao's saying carved into the rock in his own calligraphy brush strokes: "You are not a man until you have climbed the Great Wall." I guess I am half a man as I got half way up!

When we started looking for the driver, the police and Army had cordoned off all the roads. They were making people stand back on the sidewalks. We tried to cross the road to the gift/coffee shop to wait, but we were threatened with bodily harm by the guards moving us back. They kept saying the cars would be moving off the hill shortly...Suzie said that meant 30-45 minutes min. The cars began buzzing by 30 minutes later, and off we went to find the driver.

We drove to the Jade store, where I was forced to have a "free" lunch alone. The drivers and guides may not eat in the dining room, but I am quite sure they do not like the food! May I say I cook much better Chinese food than I ate in that restaurant....and I did not buy any jade! A guide will ordinarily take you to stores that cater to the tourist trade, and they get a percentage of anything that you buy. I was also taken to the silk shop (I bought 2 ties with Chinese writing), the cloisonne factory (interesting tour, but I already knew what I was going to buy there), the porcelain factory (the pottery was gorgeous, the prices were outrageous), the silk rug outlet (I knew I was going to buy a small rug for my bedroom...but I'm also sure I paid too much), and a large shopping center (I only went to 2 floors, and bought small silk gifts to take home). It's all part of the guide's shtick!

Despite the pummeling from the locals, I was thrilled to have climbed the Wall. We then drove through the countryside (very urban, and very interesting) to the Ming Tombs.