Beijing, China: The Great Wall of China

We decided to visit China on our way back from Taiwan because in order to visit China you have to have a visa or if you have a layover in China you can stay there for less than 72 hours without a visa.  We thought this would be the perfect time to explore Beijing since we had a layover there.

On our last full day in Beijing we visited part of the Great Wall.  We booked a full day tour through our hotel.  The tour left at 7:20 am and came back at 4:00 pm.  It was supposed to take 2-3 hours to get to the wall and then we had 3 hours to walk around the wall before having lunch and heading back.  The tour also included an English speaking tour guide.

We woke up early, met our driver and headed to the van.  When we got to the van I started to get a little worried.  It didn't seem like our driver knew much English and the van was pretty run down and didn't have seat belts.  The tour we signed up for looked like it was a pretty legit tour but this didn't look like I thought it would.  We drove to another hotel to pick up 6 more people.  Then we started driving again.  After about 15 minutes we stopped on the side of the road.  Our driver said we were waiting there for a bigger bus.  Thankfully our ride that morning was just to get us to the bigger tour bus that was actually taking us to the wall.

Here is the van that picked us up.

We sat on the tour bus waiting for others to arrive before we headed to a couple more places to pick up people.  By the time we actually headed to the Great Wall it was about 8:45.  So the first hour and a half of our tour was picking up people.  That was frustrating but we were on our way and thankfully it was a very clear, sunny day.

We did have an English speaking tour guide.  On our way to the wall he gave us some history about the wall and told us where we would be going that day.  Jake slept a little on the way there but I had a hard time getting comfortable and didn't end up sleeping.

Here is a map of the part of the wall we went to.

We took a gondola lift up to the wall.  You can walk up but it takes about 40 minutes of walking up steps to get there.  The grey part of the wall on the map is the old part of the wall that hasn't been restored so it is not open to the public.  We did walk out on that part of the wall a little ways but it is very overgrown.  If you walked the whole section of the wall on this map it would be about 8 km to the last tower and back.  Our guide didn't recommend doing that.  I thought our guide would go with us to tell us about the wall while we were on it but he didn't.  He told us a few things while we were on the bus and he told us to be back at Mr. Yang's Restaurant at 1:30 and then just let us go.

Heading up to the top.

Henrik went with us on the tour but Tim stayed behind.  Tim lived in Beijing for about three years so he had been to the wall already and wasn't interested  in going with us.

We had an awesome view on the ride up to the Great Wall at Mutianyu.

 I have seen pictures of the wall before but in those pictures the wall didn't have steps.

There were a few sections that were really steep and we had to take a couple of breaks before we made it to the top.  After we realized how many stairs we had to walk on the wall I was really glad we didn't walk up to the wall.

This is a small section of the Great Wall.  In this picture you can see about 4 km of the total 6000 km.  The first wall here was built 1400 years ago, and was upgraded to its current form in 1568.  It was most recently restored as a tourist site in 1986.

This part of the wall was built in the 1500s and has not been restored in modern times.  It is just as wide and as tall as the other parts, but it's hard to tell because of the overgrowth.

It was a little bit windy but I was thankful that the sky was so clear unlike the day before.

A section of unrestored wall from the 1500s.

Inside one of the watchtowers.

Some more steep stairs but at least this time we were going down.

If you look closely you can see me in the middle of the picture.

We rode toboggans to get down.  It was awesome!

I wish they would have had a fast one and a slow one because we got stuck behind some people that were going pretty slow but it was still a lot of fun.

 We had lunch at Mr. Yang's Restaurant and then had about an hour and a half ride back before we started dropping off people.  Jake and I decided to head back to Tiananmen Square to see it on a clear day. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world and was the site of several important events in Chinese history.  It is right across from the Forbidden City which we saw the day before but it was so smoggy we couldn't see the square.  By the time we got to the square it was closed for the day and we couldn't enter it but we could still take some pictures.

National Museum of China

Trying out one of their outdoor workout areas.

On our last night we had Peking duck for dinner.  It was SO good!

This was probably one of our best meals we had during the trip.

Before we headed to the airport to fly back to Stockholm we grabbed some breakfast and headed up a hill that overlooked the city.   

We bought some fruit at this market.

They had fruits and vegetables on the first floor.

They had meat on the second floor of the market.

Walking through this market made me thankful that Stockholm has grocery stores that are very similar to where I'm used to doing my grocery shopping.   I feel like this trip really helped me realize how similar Stockholm is to the United States.

A fabric store.  Mom, I took this picture just for you!

Grabbing breakfast from a food cart.

This street has lots of shops selling food, clothes, home supplies, etc.  We bought food for breakfast at a couple of these stores.

 We ate some of our breakfast at the top of a hill in Jingshan Park looking over the city.  There is still some smog, but this was a very clear day compared to Saturday.

We had a great view of the city.

The Forbidden City

Writing with water on the pavement in Jingshan Park.

 This lady was writing different characters with each hand simultaneously.  On Monday morning the park was filled with elderly people, many of them were practicing Tai Chi for exercise.

Beijing Capitol Airport Terminal 3.  This is the sixth largest building in the world by area.  It was impressive and a great airport to be in for several hours if needed.

A quick lunch before heading home.  Can you figure out which meal was mine?

I had to get another salted caramel mocha since we don't have a Starbucks in Stockholm.  (We have one coming in the spring.)

Flying over China.

It was a short trip to Beijing but we were able to see lots of interesting things.  Here is one more post comparing public transportation and other things in Stockholm, Taipei and Beijing.  Here is the first post about Beijing.

Beijing, China: Our first day and Jake's 29th Birthday!

We had a 3 hour flight from Taipei to Beijing.  It was really nice to land and not have to recover from a long flight or change time zones.

Speaking of time zones it was hard to keep track of time while we were gone.  While we were in Taipei the first weekend Stockholm fell back for daylight savings but Taipei didn't and friends and family in Kansas didn't fall back until the next weekend when we were in Beijing.  We also had two different currencies to figure out on our trip and we would flip flop between converting those currencies to dollars and kronor.  Traveling really forces you to do some serious mental math.

We landed in Beijing around 8:30 pm and got in line for a taxi.  They had a really long line that we had to wait in before we could get a taxi.  We waited for about 30-45 minutes and then we realized that all four of us and our luggage wouldn't fit into one taxi.  So Tim and Henrik took one taxi and Jake and I were in another one.  Thankfully Jake printed off information about our hotel to show the taxi driver but even then he didn't know where to go.  Tim stepped in and told him where to go.  I know I've already said this but I don't know what we would have done without Tim on this trip.

I have mentioned before I think that I really like taking public transportation.  It turns out I really mean that I like taking the metro.  Buses are slow and taxis are scary!  We weren't 100% sure he knew where he was going, his driving was fast and chaotic, and you couldn't use the seat belts in the back of the taxi.  I always wear my seat belt.  Thankfully Jake had a map already downloaded on his phone that we can use without being connected to the internet. Jake already put a pin on the map of where our hotel was and we used the gps on the phone to see where the taxi was.  It was very reassuring to be able to watch the map as we drove to our hotel.  I love that Jake did all of that before this trip and without me even realizing we would need it.  He may not be a planner but he did a great job with the map.

Our room

Our bed

By the time we got to the hotel and checked in it was 10:30 pm.  I was ready to go to bed but the boys wanted to go grab some food.  We took a taxi to an area of town with lots of restaurants.  We walked around there for a while before we stopped to eat and have a few drinks.  We got back to the hotel around 1:30 am.

This band sang Happy Birthday to Jake since we were here past midnight which made it his birthday.

A llama.  That's normal to have out at night right?

Grabbing some breakfast before heading out.

Wow, I look rough in this picture but you can see what we had for breakfast.  It was basically a pancake with another fried piece of bread inside.  It was good.

A busy hutong market in Beijing.  A hutong is a narrow street or alley.

I'm not a coffee drinker (it might be growing on me) and I typically don't go to Starbucks very often but if I do I usually get a kid's hot chocolate.  I saw an advertisement for a salted caramel mocha and thought I would give it a try.  It was great!  

A handmade leather goods store that mostly sold shoes but Jake bought a belt and a wallet there.

Enjoying my salted caramel mocha, but not enjoying the smog.  It was really bad all day Saturday.

Getting ready to head into the Forbidden City.  This is where Chinese emperors lived and ruled from about 1420 to 1920.

Jake had some candied apples on a stick.

We did an audio tour of the Forbidden City.  This map told us which places had something for us to listen to and it would automatically start when we were in the right place.

I look excited, maybe I should work on my facial expressions.

I wore my backpack backwards a couple times during this trip.  I did it when my back started hurting from wearing it too much or when we were in a crowded area so I didn't bump into as many people and to keep a closer eye on it.

An alley full of stands selling food.  I was very overwhelmed.  Some of the food looked pretty good but some stands had scorpions and bugs on sticks and those did not look very appetizing.

We ate lunch really late on Saturday.  We walked through this outdoor market for about 30 minutes and the boys bought some food but I wanted to wait for the food court.  I was ready to sit down and eat food that didn't come from a cart and wasn't on a stick.  We got to the food court around 3:45 and I was way past hungry and tired and walking through the outdoor market with lots of interesting smells did not help the situation.

We walked through the food court trying to decide what to eat and I froze.  I was hungry but couldn't make a decision about food to save my life at that point.  I was tired of Chinese food and I wanted to eat something, anything else.  Every lunch and dinner for the last 9 days was Chinese food, or something very similar and I needed something else.  But I felt like since we were in China I should be eating Chinese food.   On top of the food dilemma, I was done with change.  I was done trying new foods.  I was done experiencing new cultures. I was ready to go home.  But which home did I want to go to?  That's when I started having a small identity crisis.  Did I want to be back in Olathe or Wichita?  Or did I want to be back in Stockholm?  Where is home?  I expected Olathe or Wichita to be the answer but it turns out that Stockholm isn't that different from Kansas after all and being there would at least feel familiar.

We were not prepared for Taiwan or Beijing.  We barely did any research on either culture or what there was to do and see.  The culture shock was more than I was expecting and after a long week of exploring and eating new foods and then having another new city with new foods I was ready to be home.  So I decided to eat Burger King for lunch that day and for dessert I had one of the best ice cream cones ever.  I was in a much better state after lunch but for a few minutes there I wasn't sure it was going to end well.

After lunch we went to an indoor market with lots of knock off shoes, bags, clothes, etc.  It was really overwhelming and we didn't end up buying anything but it was an interesting experience.

We decided to see a Kung Fu show that evening.  It was pretty entertaining and it was nice to be off our feet for a couple of hours.

We headed back to the hotel after the show and had dinner at a restaurant right next to our hotel.

Jake's birthday dinner.

Jake on his birthday by the front desk of our hotel, the date is on the counter.

We had a busy first day in Beijing and the next day we were getting up early to see the Great Wall!