The Great Wall

Remember I was writing about how I write my blogs? And that YuMei mentioned about the Great Wall? Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is it! That moment has arrived!
By coincidence I was reading an article about the Great Wall, and all the pieces fell into place.
It was in a Dutch science magazine and it was talking about the fact that China is now going to measure precisely how long the Wall actually is. At this moment they are talking about 7300 km, without any precise idea.
They know that it would take 3 years to walk from one end to another. But then you do have to get off the Wall occasionally, since it is not one single wall, but several walls considered to BE one wall.

And we had the opportunity to visit it last year. I had never really thought about going to China or anything. Not that I wasn't interested or anything. It just simply never crossed my mind. But last year, when we planned to go to Taiwan, we decided to have a small vacation afterwards, and Beijing was our choice. And who ever says Beijing, automatically says Great Wall. So, off we went, to Huairou, which is close to Mutianyu Great Wall. It is not the closest place from Beijing, though. From Beijing you could easier go to BaDaLing, but that place is always packed with tourists, and since we don't really like to be seen as tourists (even though we are), we wanted to go to Mutianyu. Another reason for us to choose Mutianyu is the fact that usually the trips to BaDaLing are combined with a visit to "thirteen- tomb-something" (I couldn't find the Lonely Planet when I wrote this). And since we were with Alec, and YuMei don't want to take Alec anywhere close to a grave or tomb or anything involving dead people, Mutianyu was the best alternative. About YuMei, Alec and dead people, it has got to do with at first thought superstition, but I will write about this some other time, because there is a lot more then superstition.

It was a hour drive, well, at least that's what we thought. However, we spend 2 1/2 hours in the bus. And once we got there, it was still about 30 minutes to the actual place. And especially that last part was quite interesting. Once we got out of the bus, the usual pulling and pushing of the local taxi drivers started. And since we were a bit too lazy to actually haggle about prices or anything, we just more or less took the first driver, and got ourselves a deal of 120 yen, and for that money he even waited at the drop-off point. He told us to follow him, and we past some luxurious and new looking minivans. So, it was a bit disappointing to see the bus we stopped at. Words can not describe......well, no, that's a bit TOO dramatic. Let me just put it this way: I'd probably never seen a van like this before. I think I'd even seen some cellotape or velcro, but that could also have been my imagination. Well, on one of the pictures you can see the interior of this fine limo. At least the driver was my kind of driver. Come to think of it, they ALL are in both China and Taiwan. Once we got there, we had to wrestle ourselves through the stalls with all the stuff nobody wants to buy, but end up buying anyway, because it is so cheap. And now I think back about it, I always wondered the following: When you walk past the first and second stall, and you reject every item they push in your face, what makes seller number three, four, five......... up to hundred think that you will buy that exact same item from them, when you just rejected it from the previous sellers?

Anyway, Alec also did exactly what I had expected him to do. You see, we brought a babycarrier along with us, which we borrowed from friends. It's like a backpack, but then for kids. We dragged the darn thing all the way along with us for junior to sit in, and guess what???? The moment his butt touched the seat, hell broke loose. No matter what we did, and what we promised, he wasn't planning to stop crying. I think they could even hear him cry in Beijing. So, picture me, walking around with a babycarrier on my back, and the baby on my shoulders! Luckily, he also have walked by himself, otherwise I'd probably ended up with a hernia.
I must say, I was impressed with the size of it all. It really is a magnificent piece of work, and I can't find much words to describe it (feel free to help me out here).
All in all, we spent one hour on it, because Alec started to get tired. So, basically we have spend more time travelling to the site, than that we were actually there. But, would I do it again? And would I do it the same way? YES! All of the above is for me basically the thing that makes trips like this special. Even the occasional set-backs and nuisances are all part of the experiences.