Great Wall of China

We boarded the bus at the Beijing Ritz Carlton Financial Street at 7 am for our visit to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. We had gone to breakfast in the hotel dining room at 6 am. This breakfast was much more Western than our previous stays. Although most of the hotels offered eggs of some sort, the breakfast was largely Asian in influence. Here just the opposite was true. Most of the items on the buffet were to US and European tastes with some Chinese choices. We had some of the shrimp dumplings (bao), fresh fruit (melons, dragonfruit, pineapple) and Chinese noodles.

With traffic in Beijing it took nearly 90 minutes to arrive at the location to visit the Great Wall. The highway to access the visitor area is on the major route north from Beijing. That and the upcoming national holiday means that traffic was very heavy even at the time we left the hotel.

Mary at the Great Wall of China

We arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall around 8:30 and noticed immediately that the air temperature was much cooler. We were pleased that there didn’t appear to rain clouds in the sky but there was a slight breeze so we all took jackets. Patrick gave us tickets for the funicular rail up the mountain and we went up the incline. At an altitude of over 6000 feet we could feel a much cooler air temperature. The major issue was the wind. The howling wind made the air seem very much cooler. We were all bundled up to keep the wind from freezing us.

Our group at the Great Wall of China

We walked down the Great Wall in the steeper direction until we came to a section that we thought was too steep. Since we liked the view from that spot we decided to take a few snapshots then walk the other direction. We turned around and started walking the other way passing the point where we started. As we approached the end point for this section of wall several in our group told us that a Chinese couple was fighting up on the wall. As we approached we saw a Chinese lady really smacking a man around. He was making little attempt to defend himself. He was scratched and red from her smacks and scratches. Someone eventually got security to separate the two.

We took a number of snapshots of the wall and surrounding countryside then walked back to the interpretative trail just below the Great Wall. There was some signage indicating the UNESCO World Heritage Site status but there really wasn’t enough information that either of us would consider it an interpretative trail. We stayed bundled up as much as possible in the strong wind then made our way down the mountain on the funicular rail around 10:30.

Great Wall of China

We took the bus for a 40 minute ride to a company that makes jade, jadeite and nephrite carvings and jewelry. A speaker talked to us about the three materials and what each was best suited for. She also taught us how to recognize genuine materials from reproductions and how to determine one grade of jade from another. She discussed the art of carving jade and the various shapes of jade carvings and what each shape symbolizes. After a quick walk around the store we went upstairs to lunch which was the common family style lunch. Most items on the table were familiar from previous meals but we thought it was good. We went back to the sales area after lunch and bought some jade jewelry items for family and friends.

Statue of a Ming general along the Sacred Way

We finished our day by going to the Ming tombs which is the area where the emperors from the Ming Dynasty are buried. We walked along the Sacred Way admiring the stone statuary from the 1300s depicting generals, warriors and animals. Since the day was beautiful and sunny we enjoyed the walk. We took a lot of photos of some of the more interesting statues. On the way back to our hotel our bus passed by many of the sites from the 2008 Olympic Games. We got back to the Beijing Ritz Carlton in the Financial District around 4:30 to rest after our travels.

We elected to not have the optional Peking duck dinner with the group.  Instead we went into town with a group of about 30 from the group who made the same decision. We had eaten duck on several occasions over the past few weeks, and we just wanted a more low key evening. Because our guide, Patrick, took the 30 or so visitors to the duck dinner we got in David’s bus to ride into the restaurant.

Our bus let us off in an area of inner city Beijing where a lot of small shops and restaurants catering to local residents are located. We walked down an alley (Hutong) to the entrance of the small restaurant. We were in a room with the four of us as well as Keith and Krystal from Greenville, SC. We enjoyed chatting with Keith about some of their recent travels to Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and the Yucatán. Krystal shared her enthusiasm for essential oils with us. Because she has a very limited diet she was unable to eat any of the plated dinners we were served but planned to eat some of the snacks in the hotel bar after we returned. The name of the restaurant cracked us up, Grandmas Kitchen! It was obviously for local Chinese despite the name.

The restaurant staff did not speak any English but David did a great job of communicating our needs to the waiters and cooks. We had a choice of meat loaf, chicken cordon bleu or a vegetable roll. The meal started with vegetable tomato soup followed by a garden salad with Thousand Island dressing. Everyone in our room had the chicken which was not a typical preparation for chicken cordon bleu but was really quite good. The chicken was pounded thin and stuffed with a mix of chopped ham, cheese and mashed potatoes. It was rolled in a light crumb coating and baked perfectly. There was broccoli and garlic bread on the side. Dessert was a very good slice of apple cake. We enjoyed our meal and chat with Keith and Krystal very much.

We returned to the Ritz Carlton after dinner. Mary and Cindy played cribbage while Mark and I read. We turned in early since had a busy day planned for tomorrow in Beijing.