Great Wall

It is pretty exciting to be only 3 days into the summer and to have already had a day that you know you will never forget.

This morning I got up at 5:45, picked up a to-go bag of dumplings to go along with my 3 clifbars, and headed out to the Great Wall. I chose to avoid the most common tourist route and instead took the Happy Fun Times Extreme Adventure Great Wall Tour, starring myself as the sweaty, out-of-breath American.

Four hours later, I made it by foot, subway, and very old bus to a fairly remote section of the wall called Simatai. There were probably only 100 tourists in this area of the wall, which is pretty good for a summer Saturday. The sections of the wall closest to Beijing are supposedly overrun this time of year.

A few fun facts I learned (or think I understood) about the wall:
- Mostly built in the Ming Dynasty around the 1300s - my section was built in the 1370s.
- The wall is over 1,200 miles long but is not one continuous piece, there are numerous sections which are not connected everywhere
- In the end, the wall didn't work. The Mongols eventually went around it under Genghis Khan (I think the military history of walls has proved extremely ineffective, all the way to today)

Hiking along the wall was much harder than I anticipated. First, there was a 30 minute cable-car ride (the most poorly constructed cable car I can imagine) from the parking lot to mid-mountain. Then about 20 minutes of hiking straight uiphill. Then, the wall itself. IT was really amazing - ran right on top of a stunning mountain ridge line. I hiked 12 watchtowers long. I don't know exactly how far that is, but I know it was very hot and tiring. But really, really cool. Lots of steep, uneven steps up and down and beautiful views all around the countryside. Same as Machu Picchu, but different.