Saturday, October 17, 2009

Reitz's Invade Beijing - Part 3

Where can you ride a chairlift, take a toboggan, and be greeted by blood-thirsty Mongolian soldiers at the end?





The Great Wall at Mutianyu, of course! Like a nice bell curve (y-axis = enjoyment; x-axis = time), my family's trip to beijing peaked in the middle, climaxing with our day at the Great Wall. I woke up early to cook french toast before our driver picked us up at our house. From beijing, dark thunderclouds and smog threatened to ruin our day. However, any worries we had were alleviated when we saw the clear blue skies at the wall. After navigating a gauntlet of hawkers, we were ready to conquer the wall... and yes, conquer is an apt word.

As usual, the wall speaks for itself. Enjoy.


Before my brother came to beijing, i asked him what things he really wanted to do, and #1 on his list was the Great Wall. While camping on the wild wall would have been his preferred method, it just didn't work out. I was a little nervous about the weather marring his one chance to see it, so we opted for the sure thing at Mutianyu. Unfortunately, Mutianyu doesn't have any Wild Wall, and it's all been greatly reconstructed. My parents called it quits after 2 hours of stairs and breathtaking views, with no end in sight. After all, the wall continues for another 4000 Km, give or take. Ray, ace, and i pushed on for the last 20 minutes of stairs and found the "end". The end is denoted by three clearly marked signs, each of them indicating we cannot not proceed. We proceeded. There, we found just a little taste of the Wild Wall and ray got his wish.

Back in beijing, we gorged our weary bodies on mexican food and quenched our parched selves with mango margaritas at Luga's. Truly, an excellent day by any measure.

~Kev

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