May 26 - The Great Wall

One year ago today, we climbed the Great Wall of China!!! What an experience. It's something that I never imagined I'd be doing. It was very surreal. There aren't many other things in my life that I can say that about. In 1991, I had the opportunity to travel to Moscow on business. There's another trip that I can honestly say I never imagined. Red Square, Lenin's Tomb, St. Basil's Cathedral. Who knew I'd be so into touring the capitals of communist nations?!?!

The day started off with a tour of a jade factory. We got to see how jade is selected, the different grades of it, and an artist in action:

This was one of the pieces on display in the gift shop.

One of the few must-have souvenirs on my list was a jade bangle. I thought about waiting until we got to Guangzhou to buy it, but figured I might as well buy it here, where the quality was known (and the prices were higher, I'm sure). This beautiful young saleswoman was helping me to select a bangle - there were many colors to choose from - dark green, light green, white, or even lavender. I couldn't decide and at one point, she had about four bangles on my arm for me to choose from.

Now, all during this excursion, I was looking at the price tags on each and mentally dividing by eight to get the price in dollars. I thought I was looking at bangles in the $200 price range, but imagine my horror when I realized I had dropped a zero and they were actually about $2000 each! And I had four or five of them on my arm at once! Talk about some bling! I immediately apologized and told the woman that they were out of my price range. No problem, she said, and she asked what I wanted to spend. When I told her about $200, she took me to the B grade jade, but my bangle is lovely and I treasure it! It's mostly white with a little green in it. Someday, it will be Sophie's. And I bought Emma a rabbit pendant.

EJ was quite the attraction at the store - the salesgirls all loved her fair hair. A few of them grabbed her by the hands and took her into another room where they immediately made her up with a traditional Chinese 'do (you can see it below in the Great Wall pics).

Next, we were off to the Wall. The mountains on the way there were stunning:

This is the first view of the Wall when we got off the bus. You know, I didn't really notice it until I looked through these pics today, but the sky was so incredibly blue and clear outside of Beijing, not like what you would expect based on what you hear about pollution there. Honestly, the air quality didn't really bother us that much. I remember it being much worse in Moscow.

The portion of the Wall that you get onto first has a whole chain full of locks along it. Couples put a lock on the chain and toss the key over side. Notice EJ's hairdo!

I had imagined I would hike all the way to the top of this very steep section that we visited (the Badaling section). But wow...it was so much steeper than I expected - almost like a ladder in some spots. And the steps were all uneven, which made the climb tricky...one would be about 6 inches high and the next might be 14 inches high. We made it as far as the first tower - here's a view down - very dizzying!

We went up on top of the first tower for these shots:

K and EJ went back down after reaching the first tower, but I decided to see if I could go a little higher. I made it to the next platform up (about halfway to the 2nd tower), but it was about 90 degrees that day and very crowded, so it was frustrating and exhausting. And coming down was just as tough as going up because you really had to pay attention with each step.

From the platform, you could see the wall stretching across the mountains...just fabulous.

Perhaps if I resume my stairmaster training now, I can make it to the top when we make a return trip when Sophie's older!

This year, we did go camping - but just for one night. We decided not to fight the traffic and a late setup on Friday evening, so we left Saturday morning and came home Sunday night. We hope to be up there many more weekends in the next month. EJ decided to try the Fun-Yaks.

We came home early because EJ wanted to participate in the community Memorial Day program, where the 3rd and 4th grade chorus was invited to sing:

Sophie saw one of her best buddies there - her friend from daycare...another China sister! These two have really taken to each other - like they know they have a special connection.