Second excursion: The Great Wall

When you think of going to China I think most people want to visit the Great Wall -- us too! So that was our first real sightseeing excursion destination. It is amazing! It is one thing to see photos of it and a whole other thing to actually hike along it's rolling terrain. It follows the ridge line of the mountains that is covers and those mountains have A LOT of up and down; hence A LOT of climbing and descending and not much flatness. Heidi had already told us all about their many hikes along the Great Wall but once again until we had done it ourselves it just still surprised us. The stairs are either really steep and of various heights and wideths or very shallow and exhausting to take so many short steps all in a row. We would hike along for a while and then have to take a break for photos or chatting just to give our muscles a rest. Of course, the kids just ran and bounced and loved waiting at blind corners to jump out and try and surprise us -- so much energy. Most of the wall is in disrepair. There are only certain sections that have been restored and are open for visitors. The Wall snakes across the mountains in every direction for miles and miles and miles... it is just astounding! We rode up the mountain in a gondola and rode back down on a chair lift. We were going to ride "toboggans" down but it rained while were were up there and so the tobaggan course was closed down - - bummer!

Once a year there is a Great Wall marathon and it happened to be run the second Saturday that we were in Beijing -- no, none of us took on that challenge but there were quite a few people in Heidi's Branch (Church group) that had run it and on the Sunday after everyone was talking about what an arduous workout it is. One man was telling me that there were sections where he was literally crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees! People were asking the runners what their finish times were and the answer was always -- it is not about how fast you can do the marathon, it is about whether you can finish it! I only heard one guy tell his time and he did it in about 5 1/2 hours and that was considered a fast time.

A couple days after our trip to the Wall, Eric had a Boy Scout campout to go on. Someone got mixed up on their directions to where ever it was they were supposed to be going camping and so they ended up hiking up the mountain and camping right next to the base of the Wall. He said it was a little freaky to be there at night. He couldn't help thinking about why the wall was built, which was to protect the people from invading warriors, and imagine what it would be like if some invaders were trying to get over it that night. I'm not sure he slept a lot that night. But I don't think there are alot of people who can say they have practically slept on the Great Wall!