China IV - Climbing the Wall

Our second full day in Beijing, we were up bright and early for a breakfast of eggs over easy and steamed dumplings. Then it was off to the Great Wall.

Calling it "The" Great Wall is somewhat of a misnomer, as there were a number of walls built and rebuilt at varying times in China's history. The original "Great Wall" was built by Qin (pronounced "Chin"- hence the name of the country), the first known emperor of China after he conquered the other small kingdoms around his small kingdom and created a united empire in around 500 B.C.E. Supposedly, the other kingdoms already had built defensive walls around themselves so he tore down the internal walls separating the parts of his new empire while strengthening and extending the existing walls in the north - he was worried about barbarians from that direction. That wall was mostly rammed earth and was north of the stone wall we know today from the History Channel etc. and is pretty much gone now after over 2,000 years of weathering and erosion.

The second "Great Wall" - the one tourists visit today - was built in the middle of the 1400's by an outfit called the Ming Dynasty (known also for expensive vases which you probably didn't want to drop off the Wall). Even this one is slowly falling apart except for the parts that tourists visit - those sections are maintained and in some cases restored. The rest of the Wall, like Hadrian's in Britain and the Roman Colisseum, serves as a ready-made stone quarry for the locals.

So, off we went to the restored Ming Great Wall in our trusty tour bus.

No, this is not the Great Wall. It's a pseudo Disney Land that some Chinese entrepreneur partially completed before running out of financing and abandoning it. Apparently, the Chinese don't put too much of an emphasis on other people's copyright laws.

After about an hour or so driving on one of China's excellent expressways, we reached the Wall. If you've seen any photos of the Wall, you know it runs along the crest of a mountain range in the area north of Beijing. I've spoken about the air pollution problem they have previously, but it was really brought home by the fact that we couldn't see the mountains until we were almost on top of them. Contrast this with the Nevada desert where you can see mountains 50 miles away (although admittedly, the City of Las Vegas does win honorable mention in the air pollution contest).

The section of the Great Wall which we were allowed to climb. This is facing roughly westward.

The portion of the Wall which extends eastward from where we were. Note the haze.

A close up of tourists climbing the Wall's many steps. The steps were very worn and very uneven.

The spot on the Wall were we disembarked our bus was extremely popular since it is so close to Beijing. There were huge multiple bus parks and numerous tourist Tchotchke stands. The stands were even on the Wall and they included an expresso bar! It was interesting that even with the large numbers of Western tourists, at all the National Monuments that we visited, they were well outnumbered by Chinese people. They seem to be very keen on their country's history - I get the feeling probably more so than we Americans are on ours.

Michelle on the Great Wall. She thought it was almost as nice as the retaining wall she had built behind our house in New Jersey (The Great Wall of Rockaway?)

Me posing in front of some Jackie Chan-type ancient Chinese weapon replicas. "Round" people like me are referred to as "Happy Buddhas" in China. I told Michelle to rub my tummy for good luck.

A picture only an old ordnance engineer could love: one of the cannons used to defend the Wall from attackers. The Chinese invented cannons but those knob-like thingies on either side of the gun barrel are called "trunnions" (they make aiming easier and more accurate) and were borrowed back from European cannon design.

After about an hour or so on the Wall, it was time to move on. The tour bus took us to a place for lunch (not very good) and a Jade factory and showroom. Then it was back to Beijing with a stop at something called the Ming Tombs along the way. It figures the Mings would want to be buried near their wall.

A carved jade ship model which was being sold for some insane amount of money (in New York it would sell for a psychopathic amount of money)

The Ming Tombs were interesting. They had a small but nice museum as part of the complex. However, I think I probably could have done without seeing them. But, since they were on the way back from the Wall - what the hell.

The museum at the Ming Tombs

A statue of one of the Ming emperors. Don't ask me which one. Probably the guy who had the monopoly on vases. I think antique dealers secretly worship him.

I asked our tour guide how the Mings came to rule the planet Mongo and he just kind of looked at me funny...

That night, back in Beijing, we were taken out to a Peking Duck dinner. It was actually pretty good, though not as good as some I've had. The trouble with being from the New York area is one really gets spoiled foodwise. Well, anyway it was one of the better dinners on the trip. I'll discuss the topic of food on the tour at greater length in another posting. By the way, don't ask why the duck is Peking while the city (at least in this day and age) is called Beijing. It's some complicated hoo-hah involving Chairman Mao, Chiang-Kai-Shek, etc. etc.

The next day, our last in Beijing, we visited a place called the Temple of Heaven. This was where the emperor would conduct ceremonies twice a year to pray for a good harvest. Apparently the run-up to the ceremonies included a temporary conversion to both Catholicism and Judaism since the emperor was required to abstain from sex and pork for some time prior to the ceremony.

Our tour guide Mr. Chen holds his ever-popular red lantern in front of the main building of the Temple of Heaven. He was surprised to hear that there is a replica of this building at Disney World Florida. Our friend Roz is on the right under her umbrella. As far as we know, there is not yet a replica of her at Disney. But there probably will be when they build a pavilion of famous Librarians. By the way, this was the only day it rained.

The interior of the above building

From the Temple of Heaven it was off to the airport for the 90-minute flight to Xi'an.

Next: Terra cotta warriors and marketplace warriors.