Tuesday October 16, 2012

Asia 2012: Day 3

The heavens opened up as we left the hotel this morning, drenching Beijing in a grey rain, washing away its streets and cyclists.  Today we left the city for Mutianyu, a section of the Great Wall of China about two hours away given the traffic of Beijing.  The Great Wall overall is a 6000km long fortification, but today the wall segments are whats left.  As we piled out of the van and walked up, we had two options:  Walk up to the wall, or take a cable car to Tower 14, midway along.  We opted to take the cable car, as the wall itself would pose its own challenge.  The rain was still coming down though light was starting to shine through.

Standing up on the wall, looking at its wavy, organic path along the spine of the mountain top, was an absolutely breathtaking moment.  It also happened that the rain stopped minutes later, clearing the wall of throngs of tourists but leaving a foggy, somewhat magical mountain perch for us to walk along.  Despite my 5D incorrectly exposing the overcast light, I preferred this because it was damp, yet cool.

Siobhan and I walked along the wall top, its crooked tiles undulating up and down, sometimes converting to steps as we reached an angle too high for level stone.  The towers themselves are built of stone, each with a panoramic view from its roof top.  The valleys on either side were shrouded in fog, covered in a lush carpet of trees now turning warm shades in autumn.  Mountain ranges stretched out towards the horizon, silhouettes layered into the distance.   We decided to go as far as we could, to the twenty second tower.  It seems to be perched at the very end on top of a very steep mountain, which required an absolutely grueling climb.  Just before on another watch tower, a local sells beers and snacks before you finish at the top.  

The climb up the mountain on this section of the wall was painful, at least for my untrained self, carrying two full frame camera bodies and four lenses.  However, after several pauses, I managed to get to the top.  I was enjoying the beautitful vantage from this final tower, when up came a group of Type A corporate personalities, screaming accolades and self affirming team building business cliches.  Every few seconds, the serene peace of this stunning vista was pierced by their self congratulatory screams, and repeated chants of the 1998 World Cup song, "Hey Baby!".  As we began to return down the hill to avoid them, they formed a human pyramid, took a picture and then planned to go past the warning signs off the uncharted parts of the wall.

A brigade of souvenir sellers encamps on the base of the mountain here.  They're not as bold as the sellers in Egypt, but they do like to show you their wares, including a portrait of Obama wearing a Red Army hat.  

The lunch options, as suggested by our guide, are not numerous in Mutianyu.  We ended up in Subway, where the staff proceded to confuse my order, then scrape off the previous order and put my actual order back onto the bun.  However, given the three hours of hiking along the wall, I would have eaten a horse.  

In the afternoon, we visited the Summer Palace, built by the Empress Dowager as a vacation retreat.  As we walked along the long corridor, we drew a path around the lake, the main temple on the hill basking in the setting afternoon sun.

Tonight, we went to Da Dong Duck, a famed local roast duck restaurant, with Alvin Chin, former student of Mark Chignell's.  Alvin now works here at Nokia's development center in Beijing.  The food was exquisitely prepared and visually presented, but perhaps the best part was to talk to him and his wife, who moved here a few years ago and gave us an intriguing personal view of life in this city.