MADE IN CHINA

WEATHER: Tops 20C - Lows 1C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : The GREAT WALL of China 

BUMMER OF THE DAY: May have Shingles back – medication needed

BUYS OF THE DAY:  Gloves 70 RMB – Bear Hat 20 RMB – Panda Hat for Bill 15 RMB

WORD OF THE DAY:

Day 2 dawns and the day looks like it is going to be a beautiful day.  Cold but beautiful.

I have been to China before.  I did a 2 week Travel Indochina tour 10 years ago but was looking forward to seeing the Great Wall again.  There are just some monuments in the world you can do once and be happy not to go back to again, but I think the Great Wall is like Ayers Rock – it can look different each time you go.  It can be the time of day or the weather conditions that make it look a little different from the last time you saw it.

I missed the first day of the tour, as I was still on my booze cruise with my gal pals from Sydney to Brisbane.  But the first day compromised of the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven and they are some of the sights that I just mentioned – happy to do once and glad I went – but wouldn’t do twice, so I was okay on missing out on that part of the day.

The GREAT WALL – truly is just that.  What an amazing experience that I think everyone should see once.  It is one of those amazing feats like the pyramids of Egypt – how the hell did they do it?  

We departed our hotel at 6am in the morning for the 90 minute drive to the Mutyanyu section of the wall.  There are other sections,  but this is supposed to be the best part of the wall.  When we arrived we were the only people there, the stalls and food vendors were not even set up yet! 

There are 3 ways to get up to the wall.  You can catch a cable car, a chair lift or the good old fashioned way and walk.  We chose the later and decided it would be a great claim to fame to say we climbed the great wall of China.  So off we set for the 30 minute stair master work out of walking the 989 steps ( yes I counted them ) to get us to the top of tower number 5 of The Great Wall of China!!!! 

I cannot tell you how amazing it was to be walking on this structure.  Because we had set out so early we were the only people on the whole wall for pretty much the 2 hours we spent walking on it.  We walked to tower 20 and then caught the cable car back to the bottom.  Needless to say I have a lot of photos and these can all be found on Facebook, please look at them as they are just amazing.  But what a great way to spend my first full day in China.

The Great Wall is a single, continuous wall built all at once is a myth. In reality, the wall is a discontinuous network of wall segments built by various dynasties to protect China’s northern boundary.

During its construction, the Great Wall was called “the longest cemetery on earth” because so many people died building it. Reportedly, it cost the lives of more than one million people.

The Great Wall is truly a remarkable feat.