Sunny Saturday afternoon
A sunny Saturday afternoon can only mean one thing for us these days--a quick drive up to one of the Great Wall access areas. This time we went to Shuiguan (but not the Commune--maybe next time?).
This section of the Wall is really uncrowded. Possibly the difficulty of the climb is to blame. We chose what appeared to be the less difficult side.
It looks pretty rough from the bottom. It looks worse from the top of these stairs. It was like looking over the top of a roller coaster.
I am not yet tired of looking out over the mountains and see the Great Wall twist and turn along the ridges. I definitely tire of the climb.
In the middle of the above picture I thought I saw something--but what? Only after focusing my camera to its furthest setting could I see an older, unreconstructed section of the Great Wall that was being restored. Or rather, it has not until now undergone a contemporary reconstruction.
Later, as is our habit these days, we went into Badaling and treated ourselves to some well-deserved cold drinks at Starbucks. They were surprised to see us again, and that I used a Beijing-Tianjin Starbucks discount card, so I explained to them that we lived in Changping, and theirs was the closest Starbucks. They also thought it was funny that my husband really likes the Great Wall and wants to see it every weekend.
As we sipped our drinks upstairs, we talked to some American tourists. They were with a group from Springfield, Massachusetts, and they were very impressed with my correct pronunciation of Worcester, as in "my cousin is a seminarian for the Diocese of Worcester." They were clearly enjoying their trip, and luckily they did get to the Summer Palace earlier that day, a beautiful blue-sky day. We volunteered that we lived here, in a part of Beijing far out of the center of the city but close enough to the Great Wall that we've made several visits to different locations in the past few weeks. They thought that was great, one of them saying that if you had to live close to somewhere in China, being close to the Great Wall would be pretty cool. I didn't ruin the moment by enumerating all of my recent frustrations. I just agreed with them and wished them a safe trip home.
On our own way home, on a road that runs alongside the Badaling Expressway, we were afforded occasional views of the Great Wall. Those tourists were right, in a way. Regardless of everything else, it probably is pretty cool to live here if we have to live somewhere in Beijing.
This section of the Wall is really uncrowded. Possibly the difficulty of the climb is to blame. We chose what appeared to be the less difficult side.
It looks pretty rough from the bottom. It looks worse from the top of these stairs. It was like looking over the top of a roller coaster.
I am not yet tired of looking out over the mountains and see the Great Wall twist and turn along the ridges. I definitely tire of the climb.
In the middle of the above picture I thought I saw something--but what? Only after focusing my camera to its furthest setting could I see an older, unreconstructed section of the Great Wall that was being restored. Or rather, it has not until now undergone a contemporary reconstruction.
Later, as is our habit these days, we went into Badaling and treated ourselves to some well-deserved cold drinks at Starbucks. They were surprised to see us again, and that I used a Beijing-Tianjin Starbucks discount card, so I explained to them that we lived in Changping, and theirs was the closest Starbucks. They also thought it was funny that my husband really likes the Great Wall and wants to see it every weekend.
As we sipped our drinks upstairs, we talked to some American tourists. They were with a group from Springfield, Massachusetts, and they were very impressed with my correct pronunciation of Worcester, as in "my cousin is a seminarian for the Diocese of Worcester." They were clearly enjoying their trip, and luckily they did get to the Summer Palace earlier that day, a beautiful blue-sky day. We volunteered that we lived here, in a part of Beijing far out of the center of the city but close enough to the Great Wall that we've made several visits to different locations in the past few weeks. They thought that was great, one of them saying that if you had to live close to somewhere in China, being close to the Great Wall would be pretty cool. I didn't ruin the moment by enumerating all of my recent frustrations. I just agreed with them and wished them a safe trip home.
On our own way home, on a road that runs alongside the Badaling Expressway, we were afforded occasional views of the Great Wall. Those tourists were right, in a way. Regardless of everything else, it probably is pretty cool to live here if we have to live somewhere in Beijing.
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