It'll never be the same
We have been back in Beijing for a little more than a week now. Often when we return, if the weather and air quality cooperate, we try to find our way to the Great Wall as soon as we can. It's a way for us to reintroduce our homesick selves to some of the benefits of living here.
Still a little tired Sunday afternoon, we elected to venture to someplace close and familiar, our favorite Great Wall spot. The last time we were there earlier in the summer, we saw signs of restoration work being planned. It was a surprise to us. We had been going there for years and enjoyed the solitude and decay. When we saw the scaffolding, though, we knew it would never be the same place for us.
Sunday afternoon we drove up there again, wondering what progress (if you can call it that) had been made over the summer.
More after the jump
"I guess we won't be coming here with our pumpkins again," Randy sighed.
I have to admit I am impressed by how much work was done already. The far tower appears completely rebuilt, and most of the voids in the near one (which for us were some of the best parts!) have been filled in with new bricks.
This used to be covered in centuries of dirt, and overgrown with brambles and brush.
Looking across the valley, we could see the work wasn't only on this little piece of Wall.
The whole stretch of it there was dotted with bags of mortar and scaffolding.
I'm glad we were able to enjoy it, in the state that it was, for a few years. Much like the Changyucheng restoration, we didn't see it coming. Both were such quiet, overlooked places, incredible to visit for their condition after all these centuries--what parts were still standing, what had long since fallen away. But if the rehab raises the surrounding villages' profiles, and their fortunes, I can't begrudge them that.
Still a little tired Sunday afternoon, we elected to venture to someplace close and familiar, our favorite Great Wall spot. The last time we were there earlier in the summer, we saw signs of restoration work being planned. It was a surprise to us. We had been going there for years and enjoyed the solitude and decay. When we saw the scaffolding, though, we knew it would never be the same place for us.
Sunday afternoon we drove up there again, wondering what progress (if you can call it that) had been made over the summer.
More after the jump
"I guess we won't be coming here with our pumpkins again," Randy sighed.
I have to admit I am impressed by how much work was done already. The far tower appears completely rebuilt, and most of the voids in the near one (which for us were some of the best parts!) have been filled in with new bricks.
This used to be covered in centuries of dirt, and overgrown with brambles and brush.
Looking across the valley, we could see the work wasn't only on this little piece of Wall.
The whole stretch of it there was dotted with bags of mortar and scaffolding.
I'm glad we were able to enjoy it, in the state that it was, for a few years. Much like the Changyucheng restoration, we didn't see it coming. Both were such quiet, overlooked places, incredible to visit for their condition after all these centuries--what parts were still standing, what had long since fallen away. But if the rehab raises the surrounding villages' profiles, and their fortunes, I can't begrudge them that.
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