China Beijing: The Great Wall!

We saw a lot of amazing things in China and visited some wonderful places. However, the place I was most looking forward to going was the Great Wall. Kind of like I wanted to see the Taj Mahal in India. Like the Taj Mahal, it did not disappoint!

 We met our driver around 7:30 am for an early start to the Great Wall. We went to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It took a few hours to drive there. He helped us get tickets (Emily and I needed 4 total--one for the shuttle bus, one for the Wall, one for the cable car up and one for the slide down.)

View of the Great Wall from the parking lot. So exciting! And so hazy!!!

Wendy, Louise and Me on the shuttle bus.

Emily and Me hiking up to the cable cars.

Me and Emily in the cable car.

Louise and Wendy in the cable car with the Great Wall behind them!!!

Great Wall as seen from the cable car.

Me, Wendy and Louise with the Great Wall behind us.

Some sights before we climbed onto the Wall:

Wendy and Louise climbing up onto the Wall.

Louise, Emily and Me coming through the doorway onto the Wall.

And we are on the Wall! This is the view looking towards the higher numbered towers and is the direction we initially hiked. See that hill in the distance? Emily and I climbed about 2/3 of the way up it before turning back to join the others.

Me on the Great Wall!

Wendy, Louise and Emily coming down from one of the buildings.
Wendy hadn't realized that the Great Wall was on a hill and quickly learned that when people said "I hiked the Great Wall", it was true!

Just Me and the Great Wall.

Emily, Louise, Wendy and Me on the Great Wall.

Francy hanging around the Wall.

Close up of the Wall. This section has been restored so some of the mortar is relatively new.

Me hiking on the Wall towards the big hill.

Escape ladder?

Some mountains in the distance. They really look like the mountains seen in Chinese artwork--steep and rugged with large drop offs.

I enjoyed peering out the windows.

View from the window.

Louise and Me hiking along the Wall.

White stone tablet

Info on the white stone tablet

It's really pretty and green all around this section of the Great Wall.

Louise, Emily and I finally reached the bottom of the big hill. Louise offered to watch our bags for us while Emily and I climbed up to the first watchtower. That was so appreciated!

Our bags waited patiently for us.

It was interesting seeing the top of the towers. They could have had a garden!

Louise, as seen from the upper watchtower.

We made it! It was really steep and quite tiring, but with a few short breaks along the way, Emily and I made it to the watchtower. It felt like quite the accomplishment! If it had just been the two of us, we might have continued hiking to the top after a short break. However, we wanted to get back to the others. We took quite a few photos to commemorate the experience.

Louise captured a couple photos of us. Thanks Louise!

Emily and Me waving our hats so she would know it was us. (I'm on the right.)

Starting to climb back down. It really was steep!

Emily and Me chatting as we walked.

View back up the hill from a few watchtowers over. It really is quite the hike. And we went quite a ways up the hill!

Saving our legs a few stairs.

Panoramic of the Great Wall.

A few bugs we saw in our travels.

This bug had bright red wings.

Once we got back to Wendy, we ate a bit of lunch. Then she and Louise took the cable car down and did a bit of shopping while Emily and I continued walking from watchtower 14 to watchtower 6 (and a bit beyond). This shows where we were headed. We were thankful it was mostly downhill (although there are lots of little ups and downs all along the Great Wall). Notice that there is a watchtower on the left that is off the main path.

Emily climbing down some stairs.

Watchtower 11, off on its own.

Me heading towards Watchtower 11.

Some more of the Great Wall in the distance that is not part of the restored section of the Wall.

Rain spout

This shows what the stairs on the Great Wall looked like before they were restored. We are sure glad they were restored!

Cannon

Old steps leading up to the Wall. Not restored.

We were amazed by how few people we saw on this section of the Great Wall. The other pictures we'd taken without people in them were carefully composed and timed but these were easy to take. It was amazing to hike along the Great Wall feeling like we practically had it to ourselves!

Selfie!

Where we came from. 

Where we were going. The buildings at the bottom of the hill are at the Zhengguantai Pass, which is as far as we hiked.

What a lovely looking bathroom.

There's almost always decorative elements to any buildings.

One last look at the Great Wall before heading down.

Decorations everywhere.

Emily and I were excited to slide down the hill!

Francy and Me at the top.

Emily

Me during the slide down. Notice the Great Wall at the top of the photo? There were video cameras and people monitoring our progress the whole way down the hill. I really enjoyed my ride!

What a fabulous day at the Great Wall! Emily and I spent almost 6 hours hiking and admiring the scenery. It was amazing!!! 

Funny fact: Emily's pedometer said we hiked about 6 miles on the Great Wall. But we didn't climb any steps. So, yeah, that's a bit off! I'm guessing we walked more than 6 miles once you take all those stairs into consideration....