When I arrive in Beijing it is shrouded in the same hazy sunshine (smog?) as in Shanghai. The China tour group meets up in the evening at our hotel in Beijing. The tour leader is Harvey – this is his English name, I haven't got the hang of his Chinese name yet. The group is very diverse. There are 15 of us altogether: a family of 3 from New Zealand, mother, father and daughter of about 11; Rob a young guy from Australia who is very hyper; Phil from the UK, currently living in Toronto, who speaks loudly, quickly and constantly; Anne Claire from Australia (is she going to be odd?) who has been travelling since March; Peggy from the US who is 68 and lovely and very fit; Lesley from Canada who is my room-mate; Ann from Ireland; Katie from the UK; Jess from the US; Elliot from the US and a couple from Belgium who will arrive tomorrow morning. I'm sure that by the end of the three weeks I will love them all, but for now they are strangers.
After our introduction to the tour by Harvey, those of us who are hungry go down the road to a restaurant. Harvey orders food for us all to share and we sit around a large round table with a 'lazy susan' in the middle. The food is excellent and we begin to get to know each other.
Photo 1 of dinner on the first night
After dinner some of us go to a night market.
Photo 2 of night market entrance
It is an alleyway with mainly small food stalls and it is packed with Chinese and some tourists.
Photo 3 of food stall
Tripe seems to be a speciality, as are insects of various sorts on sticks! There are scorpions on kebab skewers, which wriggle their legs and also star fish and beetles. Phil and Rob and Lesley decide they are going to try the scorpions and the stall holder deep fries them quickly. Phil chickens out but the other two crunch them up. Rob is so pleased with the experience he later eats some bigger ones too.
Photo 4 of scorpions and beetles on sticks
The next morning we have a tour to the Great Wall. We travel for 1 ½ hours on a bus out of the city to a place called Mutian Yu. This is a tourist access point for the wall and here the wall has been renovated. At other places along its 6000km length it has fallen into disrepair, or disappeared altogether. We can see part of the wall high above us on the top of the hill. Below the wall there is a collection of stalls and as we walk up towards the wall we have to fight through the barrage of Chinese stall-holders wanting to sell us souvenirs.
Photo 5 of souvenir stalls
We can get up to the wall by cable car, or walking up steps. As I am already fit for steps, I choose this option along with Peggy. We climb up steps through woodland that is just beginning to show its autumn colours and suddenly we are right under the wall and we walk up onto it through a narrow stone gateway and up a steep roughly-paved slope.
Photo 6 of accessing the wall
It is exactly as we are all familiar with from pictures. It is built on a high ridge and snakes away into the distance following the line of hills.
Photo 7 of great wall
Every so often there are small towers which contain small rooms with fire places and windows that look out over the hills.
Photo 8 steps up to a tower
Photo 9 of inside a tower
Photo 10 of view through a window
We walk along the wall for an hour or so. It is strenuous walking as we are mainly walking up or down steps of varying degrees of steepness; in some places we are walking on a stone pavement, but it is never flat.
Photos 11 and 12 of me and Peggy
After an hour or so we reach the end of the section that we are allowed on and climb up to the highest tower so far. The steps are almost vertical and we have to use hands and feet to get up.
Photo 13 of steps to top tower
The view from here back the way we came is stunning
Photo 14 view back along the wall
As we retrace our steps there is a school group coming towards us, huffing and puffing and helping each other up the steps. We also see a bride and groom being photographed.
Photo 15 of school group
Photo 16 of bride and groom
We joke about whether it is actually the 'great' wall of China, or just the 'alright' wall. We think it's pretty great.
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