This video clip is in the bus on the way to the Great Wall. The part we went to was about 40 km from Beijing. You will see that we travelled on a "Grey Sky Day". Most of our days in Beijing were grey sky days - but we did have one blue sky. Jerry's the guy in the orange top. He was one of our buddy students from Remnin University, spoke great English with great wit. Here he gives a bit of a commentary on the Great Wall before we got there. Essential listening...
There are a number of places you can stop to visit the Great Wall. Hardly surprising given it's about 21,000 km in linear length - because of all it's twists and turns and ups and downs... At this place there must've been 30 buses - all packed with mostly Chinese visitors. Very popular place.
Very popular place for photos. Atmospheric on a grey sky day...
Parts of the Great Wall are very steep. Accessible only up steps and a grunt...
The older lady leaning against the wall was 78. She was there with her daughter who asked me to take a picture of them both. Everybody asks anybody to take their pictures.
Along the Wall there are "stations" - places where soldiers were able to live while on guard. Here's a few of our group - Sandy with a couple of our buddies...
It's an evocative place. Apparently it wasn't that successful at stopping invasions either...
Just to prove I was there too...
It is an extraordinary monument. Even has it's own stormwater drainage systems...
After we'd explored the Wall, there were the various other attractions to distract. For example there was a camel - perfect for a student studying transport in China.
This one was very popular. You could get your name (individual letters) illustrated and visualised. She did beautiful work.
There were three bear pits - much to everyone's disgust - and for a few Yuan you could get a bowl of ruit slices and throw them. The bears were amazingly good at catching...
And here's how we got back down to the bus stop. Great fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment