The WALL.

Here are a few titles to describe last week:

Mid-Autumn Festival

Golden Week

Moon-Cake Festival

Rachael doesn't have work for a whole week and it was a glorious thing

Rachael's trip to Beijing!

Whatever you may call it, China took the week off and had a little celebration. 

Yum, Moon Cakes. Filled with red bean, lotus jelly,...

According to the World Bank, last year China's population was 1,344,130,000.  So, there were about a billion people planning to travel this week. Why not join in?
I was offered a spot to join one of my Chinese company coordinators and a few friends in Beijing and jumped at the chance. I didn't know when I would make it north in my travels and here was a chance for someone to plan it all out for me. Of course, I'm in! 
Because it makes perfect sense, the schools are mandated to be open on the Saturday before the holiday to make up for missing the whole week. Obviously that takes care of it. So after 6 days of teaching, I boarded the high speed bullet train (!) on Sunday afternoon. At 300kilometers an hour, we spent a comfortable 5 hours hurtling through Chinese countryside headed north. We got in late and with no problem, got ripped off by a taxi driver, had a drink at the hostel, and went to bed. Tomorrow would be an EARLY day. 

so nice to be back in a hostel.

MONDAY: Indeed, we woke up at 6am, had breakfast (yogurt, granola, eggs,toast, cheese, oh my!) and boarded a bus for the great wall. Sorry, I should rather say THE GREAT WALL. There are different spots at the Great Wall for tourists to access. We decided to drive 2 hours away from Beijing to the Mutianyu section to try and escape some of the crowd. Thank goodness. Some pictures showed people crammed onto the Wall, so crowded you were just being pushed along in a surge. Whereas we were able to get some pictures without anyone in them.
A little info:  

Watchtowers: The Great Wall at Mutianyu has 22 watchtowers, about one every kilometer, on overlapping mountain ranges. 

Dimensions: The wall, built with slabs of granite, is 22 km (14 miles) long, seven or eight meters high and four or five meters wide, crenellated on both sides. 

History: The Mutianyu Section of the Great Wall has 1500 years of history (see below) and today’s wall is a replica of the fortifications of 1568.

Construction began on this section of the Great Wall in the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577). During the reign of Emperor Hongwu (1368-1398), General Xu Da rebuilt the Great Wall on its original foundation. Mutianyu Pass was fortified in 1404 (the 2nd year of Emperor Yongle's reign) with a rare triangular formation of three interlinked watchtowers.

At least we didn't have to take the stairs to just get the the Wall.

Why do all the cool things have stairs? First Machu Picchu, now the Great Wall. There were little stairs, big stairs, no stairs where there should have been stairs, and lots of stones. At one point, I left my companions and took on the final set myself to reach "the end of the wall" or where no restoration had been done and the wall was unsafe for tourists.

After 3.5 hours of the original stair-master workout, we headed for lunch at the base. First, we tobogganed down. Because that is the way soldiers have always gotten off the wall. .

I had a nice moment at lunch when I aided some French boys at my table in ordering for them in Mandarin and then began speaking in Spanish with the Spaniards at my table. The boys were incredulous when I told them I was from America. Apparently, I was only supposed to speak English and expect everyone else to speak English. Well, same to you Frenchies! Maybe you should learn how to at least say "water" and "rice". Touche, Rachael.

queuing up for the ride down

Monday evening, we went to a famous pedestrian street called QianMen (chi-an-men). We had some delicious "hot pot" dinner where a boiling pot of water is served along with veggie, tofu, and raw meat. The water is so hot that after dropping in your food for a minute, it is cooked and ready to be dipped in delicious peanut sauce.

Our tour guide/friend Michelle was on a tight schedule so after dinner, we soon headed home to get some sleep before waking up early again..