The Great Wall

Going to the Great Wall of China is a great experience. We happened to go on one of the days that were considered a holiday by the Chinese people. during the week that includes October 1st - The day the the People's Republic of China was proclaimed - sort of like our July 4th. As you can see much of the country decided to go to the Great Wall the same day that we did. It took 4 hours to get there by car. At least 1 1/2 hours were spent waiting in a big traffic jam that we never knew the reason for.
Once we got there it was pretty cool. We went with Pat and Wes, the couple that lives below us in our building. Wes is our boss. They had invited us to accompany them there as they knew we wanted to go and they decided that it was now or never for them. An attendant at one of the restaurants invited us to have a seat at a restaurant at a "free" table. All we had to do was purchase drinks.

So we ordered a coke and 3 teas and sat and had our lunch. It was very nice. As we were leaving we were given our bill - $7.00 (50 RMB) - $3.00 for the coke and 1.35 for the teas - which are usually next to nothing in restaurants in Tianjin. So much for a free table
This sign gave us an idea of where we would be going on our hike of the Great Wall. Linda and I decided to go as far as we could in the small amount of time we had left so we headed up the wall. Pat and Wes decided not to hike up the wall but just hang around the tourist area. There is a museum, a labyrinth, a garden and probably some other stuff as well.

As we began to climb we could look down on things. This is the garden.
This is a view of the labyrinth
Linda ready to do some serious climbing on the Great Wall.

A view we had as we walked up the wall. In the distance is a section of the wall that we did not visit.

This is very mountainous terrain. It looks pretty rugged.

We walked and climbed about as far as we could go in about 45 minutes. Most sections of the wall we climbed had stairs. The steps were very uneven in height and many of the steps were about twice the distance of "normal" steps in the US. We both felt like we had had the ultimate stairmaster workout when we finished. The problem is once we went up we had to also come back down. The trip down was definitely easier but scarier. These are some steep steps we were walking down. Sections of the steps that were probably original stones had been worn from use that they had a dip in the middle.

On our way back these people were outside the wall picking apples.