June 9th was the day of our trip to 长城 (Chang Cheng, the Great Wall). This was the first (and as yet, only) major tourist attraction in China where Westerners far outnumbered Chinese. Because we wanted to walk on the Great Wall, and wanted to avoid 八达岭 (Badaling, the most popular tourist spot on the Wall), we got ourselves on a tour bus trip to 金山岭 (Jinshanling), from where we could walk to 司马台 (Simatai), supposedly 10 km further on (though it seemed like less) and be picked up to be taken back to Beijing.
Jinshanling is about 120 km from Beijing, traffic is bad, buses are slow, and we were among the first people on the trip to be picked up from our hotel, meaning that we ended up spening around 4 hours on the bus before arriving at Jinshanling. Once there, we took off walking, in what was a quite beautiful place (despite the evident pollution)
along a mixture of reconstructed portions of wall and fairly well maintained original wall. There's not too much that can be said about it that isn't best explained by pictures, so several are included for your viewing pleasure. One other notable feature was the number of people on the wall trying to sell everything from t-shirts, to water, to beer. They were fairly persistent, one of them following us for several minutes and insisting we buy something in exchange for her going away. It was an interesting phenomenon as she actually refused to simply accept money, but insisted on us buying whatever not too useful thing she was selling. In the end, she didn't get anything. Upon finishing the walk, we rested in the shade and ate ice cream, before heading down to a restaurant below the wall for a very late lunch upon which we returned to Beijing (another multiple hour journey).The next day we were scheduled to head to 承德(Chengde), a city in 河北(Hebei) province, northeast of Beijing. Our train was scheduled for around midday, but we decided to spend a bit of time in the morning heading to 北海公园(Beihai Park) to take a look at one of Beijing's most famous parks, prominently featured in my first-year Chinese textbook. The walk to Beihai took us along the wall of 中南海(Zhongnanhai), the Chinese government compound, which had an inordinate number of black cars with tinted windows entering and exiting its heavily watched gates. It's entirely surrounded by walls, making it impossible to see much of what's inside (expect in glimpses through the gates) rendering it fairly mysterious, in great contrast to its American equivalent, the White House, which, though not too welcoming of tours post-9/11, remains an iconic building. According to Wikipedia, even CCTV (which can film meetings that happen in Zhongnanhai) can't film the buildings themselves. Anyhow, Beihai, and its central feature, 白塔(Baita, the white pagoda) were quite beautiful, but time was running short. We hailed a cab to take us back to our hotel (so we could pick up our stuff and head to the train station for our train to Chengde), but he got lost - despite being told the address, and even shown a map (so it wasn't a deficiency in my Chinese). By the time we finally arrived, the trip had been several times longer than it should have been, and for all our hurrying, we arrived at the train station only a few minutes before our train - fewer minutes, in fact, than the 5 minutes early required to board. After a great deal of difficulty, I was able to figure out where we could change our tickets, and, faced with the choice of a very late night train or going early the next day, we chose the latter option. We found another hotel in Beijing (a very cheap, and less than fully reputable one - it had hourly room rates as well as nightly), and arranged that night to see a 杂技(zaji, Chinese acrobatics) performance. The performance was spectacular - 杂技 performances are pretty amazing, and, as a bit of a surprise, I ran into an old classmate from high school (who I hadn't been in touch with since graduation and who I had no idea was in Beijing).
She was also studying abroad, though her program's language pledge seemed to be much less strictly enforced, as she spoke to me entirely in English.The next day, we awoke early to travel to Chengde. Arriving there around 11:00, we headed to our hotel, before immediately taking off towards the city's most famous attraction, the 避暑山庄 (Bishu Shanzhuang), the Imperial summer retreat of the Qing emperors. It was a huge area, with numerous buildings, as well as a large undeveloped area, presumably used for hunting by the emperors, but where we took a bit of a long walk. Again, both because I lack a bit in time, and because pictures are better for telling explaining what it was like, I'll use them instead.
Lunch and dinner both included deer of the sort seen in the photos - Chengde has a reputation for game, to which its use as an imperial resort probably contributed. The next day, before our afternoon train back to Beijing, we visited two of Chengde's other most famous attractions - its Buddhist temples. The first, the 普宁寺(Puning Si) houses the world's largest wooden statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara - 23 meters tall. Sadly, photographs of it were not allowed, but I did get photos of the temple.
The next temple was 普陀宗乘之庙 （Putuo Zongcheng Zhimiao), a 220,000 square meter replica of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. We didn't have time to look at all of it before we needed to return to catch our train, but what we did see was quite impressive. Incidentally, the palace was built by Qianlong to make the Dalai Lama feel at home during a state visit - diplomacy hardly seems to have been a no-frills affair (and it shows you how much money the emperor had at the height of the Qing). The Dalai Lama is said to have appreciated the gesture.
Returning to Beijing, we spent one more night in a hotel, before taking a taxi the next day over to 北京语言大学(BLCU, where my program is) to get me started at HBA.And so concludes the account of my travels. Luckily for those who enjoy it, in a couple weeks you'll get more travel stories from my social study project in Shanxi.
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