This was giving us plenty of time to do some sight seeing! Starting with Tian'an Men Square. This is a very huge square which can hold millions of people but we were lucky we had it nearly to ourselves!! Well there were few Chinese people around and we were finding that we were the tourist attraction...
We then made our way to the Forbidden City and went under the very big portrait of Mao, hanging at the entrance of the City. We discovered that this is a real painting that is changed every year and it actually takes the artist a year to paint!! Quite impressive!
A lot of the buildings were being renovated in order to be ready for the Olympic Games or more the tourism that this will bring China and Beijing! We manage to see some of the rooms being used by the Emperors and the very last Emperess (she used to hide behind a curtain and tell the Emperor what he had to say!! middle pic) It was quite interesting to see the settings of the rooms and also the colours and jade and ceramic object left there.
After a very hot and exhausting morning, we went to have our first Chinese lunch and also experienced the joy of the Chinese lavatory and plumbing system! We also regrouped with the other part of the group who arrived on a later flight (they were going to stay a little bit longer in China after the trek) Lunch wasn't bad, sometimes similar to Chinese takeaway we could find in the UK so no nasty surprise! We then headed of to the Summer Palace which was a Palace that one of the Chinese Emperor built in order to honour his mother's 60th Birthday. It took around 15 years if i remember correctly to build (not only the palace but the surroundings, ie lake, hills etc..) Very beautiful views there and a lot of wind which helped cools us down a little bit!
The gardens were very peaceful and it was quite interesting to see how some of the buildings were decorated.
We also had a little boat trip to go the other side of the lake
We then headed of for dinner and finally to the hotel so we could get a well deserved sleep before heading off the next day to our first section of the Wall!! Before reaching the hotel, we had the opportunity to see the new Olympic Stadium:
Day 2 - TaiPingZhai - Start of the trek!
This is it! We all got up fairly early to be ready to leave and get reach our first section of the wall before lunch time. We had about 3 hours bus transfer. Before that we had a very interesting breakfast menu, egg fried rice, mange tout, cabbage but luckily sponge base, boiled egg, brioche type bread as not quite ready to face this type of food at 7 in the morning!
We were due to leave at 8am but were slighlty delayed as the hotel was missing a hand towel (nothing extraordinary about the towel) and a pillow case!! We were not allowed to leave until they were found! Bit of excitement for the real first day! The hotel staff new from which room it was missing and therefore the culprit had to go through their luggage, fortunately for us, they had overslept and missed the luggage van so their luggage was on the buses so didn't take too long to find the missing towel!
We were then able to drive out of Beijing and head East towards Huangyguan
Most people fell asleep but others admired the view or chatted to each other, guess which option i opted for?!!
After few hours and looking at some of China's reservoirs, we finally could distinguish what we will be admiring for the next 8 days to come, the Wall. We were getting close..
We finally arrive at the guest house where we were going to stay that night but first we had lunch and were very pleased to see that our hosts had adapted the menu especially for us!! We got Chips and tomato sauce amongst other dishes of course!! only drawback, we had to eat them with the chopsticks but we succeeded!! After our briefing and a short bus journey, we finally arrived at the entrance of the Wall!!
Here i am ready to ascend, suffer, enjoy the scenery etc...
We then started and here are some of the scenery:
We went up and up and then we went down, but we didn't all fall down (only a couple of people did, luckily not too much harm down, just huge bruises)
This was our first day, a gentle 2 hours walk... We then went back to the guest house and got ready for dinner, camp fire and birtday cake! One of the lady having her birthday during the trek but the tour leaders had to remind her of it! We helped her celebrate a very big but delicious birthday cake. We also found out that in China as a birthday treat, you get a bowl of noodles, egg, tomato together and this will help prolonged the longevity!
Day 3 - HuangYaGuan
We again had an early start and this was going to be our longest day of treking, we were going to do 25kms and walk some very steep stairs by climbing Heaven's ladder (there were 301 steps to be precise!) The weather was good and not too hot so it was a little bit nicer to walk
It was a really hard day but once you'd reached "Heaven", you had forgotten about the pain and the trouble you may have had getting there!
Will remember few things from that day, first an old grandpa running the stairs whilst we are all struggling (see pic). Then young Chinese students climbing the stairs with their uniforms and very unappropriate footwear: flip flops, sandals and pop socks! and finally a lady with her warm red coat carrying what was like a fridge on her back. It was impossible for 1 guy to lift it by himself. She was there on two occasions to sell cold drinks and of course t-shirts, postcards etc... she was there with a bag full of money Yuan and US dollars quite funny to see.. (see pic)
It was a very long day but a very enjoyable one, full of laughter and of course some very spectacular views! Also we got to walk on part of the Wall that had not been renovated so it was even more impressive!
That night we stayed in a farm in a mountain village and had the joy of being 5 in a room! Once again enjoyed a bonfire!
Day 4 - QianGanJian to GuBeiKou
We were going to go for a short walk in the morning on the Wall before going back to the coach few hours away from the village (coaches didn't have access as the road were not good enough really!)
We therefore walked to a platform where you can see 3 differents counties, one of them being Beijing!! (see pic of stone)
After that the group split for the ones that wanted to do a little extension, which of course i did!
We then joined the farm and started our walk down to the coach. We stop along the way and found some kids games so big kids we all were, we had a go!
Once we joined the coach, we had another 2 hours drive to our next destination Gubeikou.
To our surprise, we arrived to a very nice hotel with a lovely garden, traditional and with a lot of character. Every body had made the effort to dress up a little bit and was looking very nice. We all enjoyed it and had the pleasure to sing Karaoke (quite interesting!) and enjoy some Chinese Red Wine (only for some!) ...
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