The Great Wall
Sunday, October 14th, 2001 was a cold and rainy day in Beijing, but we were scheduled
to go to the
Great Wall and we weren't going to miss it. It was after lunch when we drove out
to the Badaling section of the Wall, one of the more popular and easily accessable sections.
The Great Wall is certainly one of the world's all-time greatest accomplishments - the
beauty and the history there is truly moving. For me, walking on the Great Wall was a
lifelong dream come true - of all of the places that we visited on the trip, it was one of
my favorites. The rain and mist made for a less than favorable picture-taking day
but created quite a romantic and melancholy setting. Here are some of the better pictures
we took 1.
Click on any picture to see the larger version.
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The Autumn colors were fantastic!
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Although it was cold and rainy, the Wall was still crawling with
tourists.
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Mei-O following the amazing 78-year old Dave up the steepest
stretch of the more difficult section of the wall.
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Us on the Wall. Note the stretch of the Wall across several mountain
ranges in the background.
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A getting-wetter-by-the-minute Rick on the Wall.
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Mei-O on the Wall. We were getting near the top of the section we were
on (the tower in the background).
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Posing in one of the battle forts on our way to the top.
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The stele reads, "If you haven't been to the Great Wall, you cannot be a
hero." 2, a call for all Chinese everywhere to visit the Wall.
The calligraphy is by Mao Zedong.
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More of the Great Wall. The battle fort on top was as far as we could go.
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With a bunch of our friends at the end of our climb.
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Another view, from the entranceway. The sign in the bottom right corner
reads, "The Great Wall of China."
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Mei-O climbing the Great Wall. The climb alternated between rampways
like this and steps, often at very steep angles.
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Some Facts About The Great Wall
To the north and northwest of Beijing, the Great Wall zigzags its way to the
east and west along the undulating mountains. Its construction started in the 7th
century B.C. The vassal states under the Zhou Dynasty in the northern parts of the
country each built their own walls for defense purposes. After the state of Qin unified
China in 221 B.C., it joined the walls to hold off the invaders from the north and
extended them to more than 5,000 kilometers.
The Great Wall was renovated from time to time after the Qin Dynasty. A major renovation
started with the founding of the Ming Dynasty in 1368 and took 200 years to complete.
The wall that exists today is the result of this effort. With a total length of over 6,000
kilometers, it extends to the Jiayu Pass in Gansu Province in the west and to the mouth
of the Yalu River in Liaoning Province in the east.
The Badaling section of the Great Wall (the section we visited) snakes along the
mountains northwest of Beijing. It was built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty in
the 14th century. On the average, it is 7.8 meters high and 5.8 meters wide at the top,
and has battle forts at important points, including the corners.
1 One of the greatest disappointments of the entire
trip occurred after leaving the Great Wall when we discovered that many of the pictures
we took there were lost because I forgot to load Mei-O's camera with film! I removed
the previous roll while on the go, and figured I'd reload it later. Unfortunately, I
didn't. We often gave Mei-O's point-and-shoot camera to others to take pictures of the
two of us, and didn't notice that there was no film in it. When we got to picture number
36 and the film didn't automatically rewind, I realized what had happened. All of those
pictures on the Great Wall (and several other important shots, including Mei-O's surprise
birthday celebration on the Yangzi River cruise ship) never got taken.
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Main China trip page
