GREAT WALL of CHINA

Our last day in Beijing was a Saturday so Jeff had the day off, and we finally were able to do some sight seeing together. First up was an hour and a half drive outside the city to see the Great Wall of China. This was by far the thing I was most excited to see!

All smiles and feeling good. . . we took a cable car up to this point.

We were at the Mutianyu Great Wall section.

Here's a map of this section of the wall. We rode the cable car up to Post 14 where the double hashed line is there in the center. Then we went to our left. You can see the path starts out a little flat, dips down, and then does a steady climb up. . .yeah, it was painful !! Then we had to walk all that way back when we were finished. Did I mention is was like 90 degrees out at 10:30am when we started?!?

Here's the start of our journey. We walked all the way on
the wall that you can see in this picture and then some!

Another shot of the wall showing how it moves up and down with the mountains.

Here's where the wall takes a steep turn uphill!!

Trying to contain my excitement to climb all the stairs behind me!

So so so many stairs!!! Seriously when are we going to make it to the top?!?

Well 472 stairs later and we made it to the top! Well not exactly, but we made it to the end of the restored part of the wall. It actually keeps going up and over the mountain. They say you're not supposed to go any further (see the picture below) for your own safety, but there are still people who go exploring there. I went a little of the way with Jeff, but seriously it was MORE steps and I was dying at this point so I left him to go exploring a little further ahead without me. Keep in mind the 472 steps were just one section. We easily probably climbed twice that just going one way on the wall !!

The sign reads "No tourist section. Please do not pass." Yeah, we didn't listen.

Here's where Jeff went up even further on the unrestored part of the wall. You can see how the stone looks different and a lot of the battlements on the walls have fallen down. See the stones in the grass behind him on the left? Now look back at the first picture of us with the wall and see how far we went !!

Oh yeah I get to walk back down ALL those stairs!!

Yep, we can't even see where we started !!

What else to do on the Great Wall of China but to enjoy a
cold satisfying beer after coming back down the very steep part with all those stairs!!

It may be hard to tell but my face is beat red at this point and we are
 dripping with sweat, but somehow we still manage a smile as we come
to the end of our journey on the Great Wall of China. It was so cool to see!!

After we got back to our hotel we showered and rested a little bit. Then we headed out to see Tiananmen Square (no good pictures of that) and the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty. The complex consists of about 980 buildings and took 15 years to build. It is surrounded by a 26 ft high wall and 171 ft moat. Today the complex is full of a lot of historical artifacts.

Here's one of the ceremonial halls within the Forbidden City.

The moat and part of the outside wall

The main gate to the Forbidden City at night 

A picture of a picture of the Forbidden City from above

All in all I am glad we were able to go to Beijing and see the sights, but I think one trip is enough for me. It's really a crowded dirty city with over 20 million people and a lot of smog with all the air pollution. There are so many people driving that everyone is assigned one week day where they are not allowed to drive and it changes every three months. It was definitely neat, though, to see some of the historical sights, especially the Great Wall.