A Hike Along the Great Wall

This past weekend we had an amazing experience. First of all, I never in my life thought I would ever visit China, and secondly, I never would have thought that I would EVER hike the GREAT WALL OF CHINA! To say that it was amazing and wonderful would be an understatement. The scenery was incredible, as well as the weather. It had just rained the day before so the air was pretty cool and breezy and it was a beautiful blue sky day. I was able to take a TON of pictures, 145 in all, and I was really impressed by the fact that I was able to hike as much as I did and enjoy it every step of the way (once we were on the wall.)






A little more about our trip... I had been researching visiting the Great Wall for some time and decided that the JINSHANLING section of the Wall would be the best for us to visit because it is still rugged, which was awesome, and far fewer people visit it, as compared to the BADALING section of the wall that has been restored and is VERY TOURISTY. It was also built about 600 years ago! Allie and Steve Tensmeyer were able to come along with us as well, which made the trip even more fun. We left from Beijing Dongzhimen Station by bus on Saturday morning at 8am and took the 1.5 hour bus ride to Miyun County where we then had to take a "taxi" to the JINSHANLING section of The Wall. I use the term "taxi" lightly because it was pretty much just a guy with a car who negotiated a price with us when we got off the bus... After another hour or so car ride, we came to The Great Wall and we were all blown away! It was amazing. The hike up to The Wall was not enjoyable in the least, but once we were on The Wall, it was an incredible hike. In all, we walked about 15 towers and it took us about 3 hours or so.


After taking numerous photos, drinking lots of water on The Wall and eating fried chicken for lunch, we took our cab ride back to our buss stop, as well as the bus back to Beijing and ended the day with a great Muslim dinner. This was by far one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have had while here in China. As I was telling Michael, "it was my favorite thing that I've done that I never even knew I wanted to do."