The Great Wall

Hey to family and friends. Winter is coming to China a little early. We've had snow last week, and we encountered some snow when we visited the Great Wall last Saturday. We took the train to Beijing and stayed at the Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel, again. Its really a great place to stay when visiting Beijing. It is very cheap, and they have private rooms along with the dorm rooms. The private rooms are clean and comfortable, and the bathroom has a western toilet. They have a nice little cafe that serves western and Chinese food till 11 pm. Its a great place to meet people traveling from all over the world. We met people from Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, and Poland. Everyone spoke English to some degree. English is really an international language. Most people are very eager to talk about their experiences in China, the good and the difficult.
   We join a tour going to the Wall from the hostel. It was about a 2 hr bus ride to the Wall, which is west of Beijing. The bus driver was a maniac. He must have blown the horn 500 times. He wasn't stopping for anyone. It was raining in Beijing so the roads were wet, but that didn't slow us down. I stopped counting the near misses after ten. But we made it.
   As you would expect , the Wall is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. It reminded me of the Smokey Mtns in NC. The rain had turned to a wet snow. It wasn't very windy, so it wasn't too bad.

This is view of the Wall from where the bus parked. We took a cable car ride up to the Wall. Thank goodness for the cable car.

Once up on the Wall, we had 4 hours to spend hiking. As you can see, the weather wasn't the best for getting scenic views. It started snowing and the footing was slippery. But there wasn't a lot of people there that day, so that was good. We hiked the whole distance you can see in the photo below. The Wall goes farther, but its not in good condition, so it is closed to tourists.

Every quarter mile or so there would be a guard tower. I can't imagine what is was like to live in these  buildings. Lonely, hot/cold, and probably hungry, and they didn't have the tourist vendors around to sell them drinks and snacks.

This is the last leg of the climb. Watch tower 23 is at the top of these stairs. That's as far as we could go. It is a killer climb.

 We made frequent stops to catch our breath. 

The last few yards to the top are very steep. You feel like Rocky running the steps of the Philly Art Museum.

Once at the top, it was time to rest and take a few pictures. Here we are on watchtower 23...happy that the hard part was over, we thought. It was starting to snow a little heavier, so it was time to head back to the bus. It was downhill most of the way. I think that was harder on knees than going uphill. But we lunch was waiting us, so that was incentive enough for me. 

We wanted to give our son, Brian, a Happy Birthday card from the Great Wall...

It was a great day on the Great Wall, even with the weather. We met some really nice people and climbed the Great Wall. Sweet.