Mutianyu

Hello everybody,

Last night we had dumplings for dinner. I had 12 or more for $4 Aussie! Then we went to a Kungfu Show, which was pretty good in the sense that the acrobatic and stunt side was pretty impressive. However, it was really cheesy and geared at tourists! I still enjoyed it though and the performers were really skilful. 

Today we woke up to brilliant sunshine and blue sky - I didn't know that could happen in Beijing haha! Luckily for us this meant we could travel to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Yesterday it was closed due to the torrential rain that caused a landslide. 

This section is named after a woman from a folk tale called Mutianyu whose husband was sent away to build the wall. He promised her they would reunite after three years and when he didn't return she went looking for him. After a long time she cried and the gods empathised. The wall opened revealing his body. She jumped in 'Romeo and Juliet' style and decided if she couldn't be with him in life she would be in death. 

We boarded our bus at 9.30 and were on our way. The scenery on the very same road I drove on Tuesday looked completely different - you could see everything today!!

Howard gave us a rundown of the wall's history on the journey. The wall is 3000 years old and took 1000 years to build under the rule of many different emperors. It passes through 13 provinces, is 5500km long spanning from the ocean to the Gobi Desert and is one of the seven manmade wonders of the world. 

The wall was built to keep nomadic people from entering China. In the winter particularly, nomads would attack farmers. Unlike the nomads, the farmers had no horses and couldn't fight back. The nomads didn't have any weapons though so a wall was built, keeping them and their horses out. Due to the wall and its greatness, China was only conquered twice despite many attempts; once by the Mongolians 800 years ago, and once 300 years ago by the Manchurians. The wall protected the north, the mountains protected the west (80% of the world's mountains that are 8000m+ are located in China). From the 17th century onwards the threat was more from the ocean, so some of the sections of wall fell into disrepair. However, some sections (like Mutianyu) have been restored for tourists to see what it would have looked like. Six sections can be accessed by tourists from Beijing. 

The protection of the wall was so impenetrable that China is the only one of the four ancient civilisations (Egyptian, Indian, Babylonian and Chinese) whose culture, script and ways still exist in the same way today. 

When we arrived we got a cable car up to the wall and then started hiking. I absolutely loved my time on the unrestored section the other day, but it was interesting to compare a restored section today. It was stunning! The weather was incredible but oh my goodness was it hot!!

We bought Subway and carried it with us, eating our sandwich atop a watchtower. There was one particular part that was so steep. I was a bit apprehensive but climbed it nevertheless. I took it quite fast and got to the top extremely sweaty and out of breath!!

Unfortunately due to my speed climbing the hill I started to get a horrific stomach ache on the way down and basically ran back to the section with a bathroom. That's all I'm saying about that and I'll leave it there haha!!

From then on I felt much better and caught up to some of the others. We continued to take in the beautiful views, despite obviously more people being about than Gubeikou the other day. Surprisingly though there weren't as many people as I thought there would be. Perhaps the extreme heat deterred people - I think it was 37!

We got a toboggan down which would have been good, but Damon, Maria and I got stuck behind a family going so slow they may as well have been going backwards!! I kept coming to a complete stop and then speeding down, so at least we got to pick up some speed. 

At the bottom I had a Gatorade and then we were on our way again. We passed the time sitting in Beijing peak hour traffic players celebrity heads! It was hilarious. 

Tonight we are taking a 13 hour overnight train to Xi'an at 8pm. There are six beds in each cabin, three high on each side. Our tour group is made up mostly of couples and then of three girls and three guys who already knew each other from the other tour who have all been put together in small groups. As a result, I'm in the same cabin as Brenton as both of us were sort of left over. We are both teachers from Melbourne who have travelled to a lot of different countries so we never run out of stuff to talk about! I'm really excited that we will have four local people in our compartment because hopefully if they speak English (Howard reckons they'll be university students) we can talk to them and learn some more about China!

I've had a fantastic time in Beijing. It's given me a huge appreciation for the air quality back home which is something I had never really considered before, but it causes me to feel like I can't breathe deeply without coughing and you also seem to end up with a layer of pollution grime stuck to your sunscreen by the end of the day! I wish I had an extra day to visit the National Museum and Temple of Heaven, but you can't see it all I guess!

See you in Xi'an!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox