China Trip - Day 10 The Great Wall

Steep steps!

Heading off the beaten path to the unrestored part of the wall.  

We hiked all the way out to the tower on the mountain off in the distance.  

This is a gate that opened into the China side of the wall.  

The wall became quite steep in spots!

Overgrown with trees.

An entrance into a tower.  

My travel companions.  From left to right: Jeff Goodsell, Maria, and JP.

Time to head back.  

Instead of hiking down we chose to take the bobsled.  How fun!

Chinese Opera

Chinese Opera

The Night Market

They had yummy treats like this sugar coated fruit

And these custard filled pastries!  Right next to......

I was so looking forward to this weekend in Beijing!!  The first day here we went to the Great Wall at Mutianyu, about two hours north of Beijing.  This part of the wall has roughly 1.5 miles of restored wall you can hike on.  We started out by taking a chair lift up then hiked east to the end of the restored part of the wall.  We then took off on a side trail to the unrestored part.  It was amazing to see the Wall hug the mountain ridge off in the distance and to feel how steep it was.  I’ve always wondered about how quickly a fire signal could travel from one watch tower to the next.  But seeing firsthand how close these towers were I could image just how quickly a message could travel.  The unrestored part of the wall was overgrown and in areas blown out completely.  The people we were traveling with said these big holes could’ve been from when the Japanese bombed it in the 1930’s.  There was so much history all around us and yet we were in the middle of this forest.  I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace and awe.

That night we were treated to a dinner at a Chinese Opera House.  Then we went to the night market to checkout the assortment of odd street food.  Enjoy the photos!