I just had my 1st Great wall experience and it was inspiring but there was something missing. Not having a loved one to share the moment, a hand to hold while stepping over rough terrain was in a way sad. I missed my family and for the first time became home sick. The haze was everywhere and Beijing is actually better than Shanghai this weekend regarding the smog. As the sun came up and the earth warmed we watched the wall appear as far as we could see. Let me start where our journey began in Shanghai.
Joyce on my team accompanied Robert and I to a train agent Thursday and we purchased two round trip tickets on a high speed train to Beijing. We left work Friday at 1:15 and jumped on the Shanghai metro line 2 for an hour. We boarded the train at Hongchaio railway station. Top speed we saw was 326kmh and that was smooth as riding on ice. We chose 2nd class seats for 550 RMB one way. $85 USD. We arrived in Beijing after 5.5 hrs. The cab ride to our hotel was just shy of another hour. The hotel we use in Pudong secured 2 nights at their sister hotel Shangri-la Beijing. We had a great gruyle cheese & ham sandwich and fries for dinner.
We awoke to a typical Chinese buffet breakfast and were provided two meal bags for lunch. A colleague of Robert had a relative in Beijing that loaned us a driver for 1000 rmb for the day. He arrived and off we went to Jinshanling. This section of the wall has sections that were restored in 1986 and sections un- restored. It was built in the 1500's. We arrived after two hours in the backseat of a Chinese sedan with the temperature around freezing.
It felt nice as I got out of the car and I left my jacket. It took us 30 minutes to get to the wall by foot. Once there it was not inspiring until we started hiking and the smog burned off. Then it was insane.
The walking is hard, very hard. Steep uneven steps with many like ladders. The unrestored section was like hiking a rocky hilly trail. The top of the wall went up and down relentlessly. By noon I was hot and sweaty. There is one store run by famous photographer Mr. Duan Jiujun. I bought a tourist T-shirt to wear because I was getting really hot and stuck my wool sweater in my backpack. The lunch bag provided by the hotel was just what we needed. We stopped in one of the unrestored guard towers to eat, it was a great place to stop.
We hiked east, backtracked and then west for an hour. We turned around again and then headed back to the car after a total of 4 hrs. Did I mention the walking along the wall was tougher than San Francisco!
