At 8am, after breakfast in the hotel, we met up with Eric, our guide for the day (and, incidentally, for tomorrow as well), who would take us out to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. This is a 2½ hour drive from the middle of Beijing — it might have been quicker, but the traffic was unexpectedly dense.
Anyway, we got out to the site, and were dropped off by our driver. We walked up to the entrance area, where Eric went in to book tickets for us to go up on the cable car — we thought our legs would enjoy the respite!
Then in, past numerous restaurants and souvenir stands, and onto a shuttle bus which took us a lot closer, where we walked past more restaurants and souvenir stalls, up a longish sloped path to the cable car station where the cable car took us up to the wall itself. We reached it fairly near the No.14 Watchtower. We walked along, past another watchtower and a little further. The whole top of the wall is made up of steps, as the wall itself follows the ridge line of the hills.
At Mutianyu, just under a grassy ridge, is the 200-meter-long phrase 忠于毛主席 — 'loyalty to Chairman Mao' (zhōng yú Máo Zhǔxí). Chairman Mao once wrote: 'If you don't get to the Great Wall you're not a good man.' (不到长城非好汉) So touring the Great Wall could be said to be showing loyalty to Chairman Mao.
The Mutianyu section of the Great Wall is the longest fully-restored Great Wall section open to tourists. It was first built by the Northern Qi Dynasty in 550–577 AD, over 1,400 years ago. It was rebuilt and strengthened under the supervision of famous General Xu Da during the Ming Dynasty on the foundation of the original wall around 700 years ago. Mutianyu Pass was fortified in 1404 (the 2nd year of Emperor Yongle's reign) with a rare triangular formation of three interlinked watchtowers. This 2½-kilometer section was fully restored in 1986, and is a replica of the fortifications of 1568 in the Ming Dynasty.
So there are 2½-kilometers of wall, and 23 watchtowers, of which we walked about 800 metres and 2 watchtowers. Okay, we're pikers, but we just wanted to get a feel of the wall, and the rest of what we could have explored is basically more of the same.
After some time on the wall, we went down by cablecar, and walked down to a dumpling restaurant where the three of us had yum cha for lunch — well, Suzie had an upset tummy, so she settled for sandwiches!
From here, we went back to be picked up by our car and back home, on the way stopping off at a roadside stall for fresh cherries and apricots. Beautiful!
An easier drive back home — the traffic was lighter — and we bade farewell to Eric until tomorrow.
Back in the room we decided to eat what we had on hand for dinner, and to work on the blog and watch a movie on TV — yes, they do show English language movies!
And that's another day pleasantly and productively spent!
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