China – Day 3 – The Great Wall
MORE POSTS ON CHINA:
Day 2 Forbidden City
Day 1 Hutong and Belltower
Continuing my photoposts about my vacation to Beijing, China with my friends AJ, Judy and Marcus this past spring! Sorry it’s slow going, I’m so busy lately! San Diego Comic Con post to come in a few days.
The view out the tour bus on our way to the Great Wall of China.
One of many Christmas displays we saw up, even though it was spring when we were in China. That’s the 12 zodiac symbols,… kindof as reindeer or something.
Beware the Autons!
I was told this was a famous basketball player. (I don’t follow sports.) I think the statue floating on the building is mildly disturbing.
One of the many multi-purpose bikes of Beijing.
The first stop on our tour was the Sacred Way part of the Ming Tombs. It is a long pathway flanked by ancient government officials and and animals protecting the way to the tomb. (You can read more about it and the significance of various animals here or google it.)
a Xiezhi?
This is the dragon-headed turtle at the end. It’s holding up a stone tablet. The turtle is a longevity symbol. Apparently if you pet it’s head and/or butt, it’s good luck (or various other auspicious things I can’t remember.)
Flowering fruit trees in front of our required Acupuncture and Ancient Chinese Medicine stop. We didn’t really mind being forced to go to this (even though what we really wanted to go to was the Great Wall). It was kind of fun to learn a little more about Chinese medicine and be diagnosed. They kept it short and sweet, too.
Vaguely disturbing acupuncture model!
Judy being diagnosed!
I was told I had too much fire and too many toxins or something to that effect.
Next required stop,… Giant Jade Factory of Doom!
This man was doing tiny tiny jade work.
Giant jade bowl of goldfish.
goldfish with REALLY BIG EYES.
Judy and I picked out jade bracelets in the factory. I’d wanted one for a really long time, and they had so much selection it was easy for me to find one I found beautiful that fit me well. I enjoyed learning a little bit about telling fake jade from real jade, too.
ONWARD!
We were lucky to go at such a nice time of the year that so many flowering fruit trees were blooming! This area farmed cherries and apples and such I think?
Starting to go up into the mountains on the way to the Great Wall. We went to the Mutianyu section of the wall because we heard it was less crowded and we thought it would be fun to take the toboggan down.
As I said in one of my previous posts about our China trip, it was interesting to us that there was so much perpetual construction.
After actually arriving at the base of the Great Wall we were let loose by our tour guide, told we could go either way on the Great Wall and just that we had to be back by a certain time. Sweet!
Random Camel on the way up to the Wall proper.
We took the cable car up!
The view…!
As you can see from our photos, it really wasn’t that crowded at Mutianyu, we really enjoyed it. The hike wasn’t too strenuous, either, which was good because my knees aren’t that great and we had a LOT of stuff to see that week!
PIERCE THE HEAVENS!
Marcus takes over Mitch’s Gurren Lagann posing.
Marcus. 🙂
Judy and Marcus trying to safely make it down some very steep steps.
Taking out Marcus,… err…. I mean showing off my new jade bracelet.
BEIJING GIRLFRIEND HOLD! We noticed a lot of guys in Beijing do this sort of fist around the neck hold on their girlfriends while standing/walking.
We wanted to take a group picture, even with some of our friends who couldn’t be there.
Me, “Cheryll”, AJ, “Char” and Judy on the Great Wall.
This lady was pretty brave wearing such fashionable clothes for the trek… especially her very high-heel shoes!
Can you see us?
The weather was SO great. We did get a few knock-you-over blasts of sandy wind, but other than that it was super pleasant.
Nearing the end of our Great Wall trek… we can see the toboggan now!
Last group pic on the Wall!
Flowering trees on the way to the toboggan.
Toboggan time! 🙂
Ready to go!
Sadly this girl in front of us was a total scaredy cat and went really slow, but we still had fun!
AJ zonking out on the tour bus ride back.
Ready to pass out back at our hotel, but we need food!
Our hotel restaurant. Dig the glitter panel column. 🙂
Demolished food! Note the red stylized lucky bats on the plate. We started noticing them everywhere!
Walking back to our room.
I so enjoyed this batch of pics since they were of things I wanted to see but didn’t get to, like the Ming Tombs and a section of the wall other than the one we went to. You SO chose wisely – this section of the wall looks really beautiful. The closer one we were at was not as nice. (And it didn’t have a tobaggan!)
It did amuse me that I also got pics of a girl in impractical shoes on the Wall and of that same X-mas store!
Oh, and I noticed those bats all over the Summer Palace! It was fun looking for them!