The Great Wall at Simatai
Today was our "Great Wall" day!! Of all the places in China that have called to us for our entire lives, it's the Great Wall (who didn't "ooo" and "aaah" when they heard their 7th grade geography teachers tell you that it's visible from space?). Our guide from the day before set us up with a driver and also asked us if his girlfriend could accompany us for the day to practice her English. We departed from our hotel with Violet and our driver for an incredibly slow drive out to Simatai, the portion of the Great Wall we were headed to (on the advice of our guidebook).Beijing traffic is unbelievable - we crawled for about an hour and a half just to get out of the city, then drove for another 2 hours to get out to Simatai.
The hike to the wall was steep, but we could see the wall the whole way, making it very motivating to keep going. The Great Wall is truly great - probably about 20 feet high in places and maybe 15 feet wide.
We climbed up onto the top and started making our way west along the wall, passing tower after tower. At one point we had to cross a river on a suspension bridge made of wood planks and one support piece of steel running down the middle - like the kind people fall through in the movies!What is so incredible about the wall is to see it undulating over hill after hill, thinking about the men who built it so long ago. What an amazing feat of engineering! The wall was so steep in places, we had to use all hands and feet! Parts of the wall have not been repaired, making it a very authentic, but difficult scramble over bricks and rubble. Tim and I sat down and ate our lunch between towers 6 and 7 - the whole time pinching ourselves that we were picnicking on the Great Wall!
All in all, our Wall experience was everything we expected and more - so majestic and so beautiful! That night we weren't quite sure where to eat (a little wary of restaurants from our previous day's experience), and we were very leg-sore and jet-lagged, so we hopped in a cab and headed for the main shopping district of Beijing, Wangfujing. There, we discovered a night market of food vendors that stretched for an entire long city block. Everything from squid to cicadas, lamb livers to exotic insects, we stayed on the cautious side and ate fried doughnut thingies and spring rolls. A fantastic way to enjoy the foods of Beijing without sitting down!