The Great Wall at Simatai 司马台长城!!!

Ni Hao, everyone! I finally made it to the Great Wall of China! I'm going to post another slideshow here because the pictures will go way beyond my words, but I do have one word for you: GO! I'm serious--if you ever have the opportunity, don't miss out. There are several portions of the great wall that you can visit and each has its own distinct personality. The closest to Beijing is Badaling. It's the most well-restored portion, and it is also packed with tourists generally. I chose to do a little bit more of a trek and head over to Simatai, which is about 3 hours from Beijing. It's generally more popular among locals because its less touristy and more isolated. I enjoyed it because we were some of the only people on the wall that I could see for long stretches, so it was much more personal. That said, Simatai is also not as heavily restored (which I think is cooler anyways--more ancient looking), and it is known for extremely steep stairs, of which there are sometimes stretches of 400 in a row. If you are up for the workout though, Simatai is the best. So go. Here's the link to the pictures: The Great Wall of China at Simatai and here's the slideshow: 

So again I'll highlight a few key pictures:

First of all, I feel the need to introduce you to the local farmer lady in the orange hat, of whose name I'm not entirely sure. She followed us all the way up and back, and on the way she and I became best friends--gabbing endlessly about, oh I don't know, all the important details that make up the basis of any real friendship, like for instance which number tower we were on and just how hot it was outside. I was later deeply hurt when I came to terms with the fact that she was only using our friendship to gradually sell me her various wares. She wasn't shy to use the struggling peasant farmer story to soften me up--but I didn't buy it. Wait, just kidding, I totally bought her story, and also everything she tried to sell me. I did, however, benefit from the fact that she was eager to take photos of me with the great wall. So here's the woman herself, among other people.

If you are planning on venturing out to the Simatai portion of the Great Wall at some point, just something to take note of: the stairs are extremely steep and lengthy at certain points, as the next picture clearly shows. 

I actually had a can of spray paint in hand ready to write various and sundry chinese characters all over the wall, but then I saw this sign and immediately came to my senses. PHEW. Just something to keep in mind: if you are looking for a good place to practice some graffiti, The Great Wall just might not be it. 

This is the Great Wall by the way, maybe you've heard about it, or something.

O, HAI MOM! There's a huge dropoff behind me! But dont worry, this is just my latest endorsement deal with Coca Cola

The Summer Palace

So I'm going to start a series of sightseeing posts, in which I'll highlight some key things I enjoyed at each place, and provide links to my pictures, as well as a slideshow within the post. First of all, you can find all my pictures at this link: Russ Ballard's Picasa Web Albums , and also on my Facebook, if you have one. I have about 800 already to sort through at this point, and I'm trying to pick out the most representative ones, so I'll be gradually posting up more as I go. Anyway, here's the first slide show:

I'm not going to go into extensive detail about the history of the Summer Palace, but mostly because I was given a tour exclusively in Chinese courtesy of Lao Lao 牢牢 and Wai Gong 外公(grandmother and grandfather). I politely nodded and repeatedly commented "是吗?!" (Really!?) but for the most part I was baffled. If you are interested, I can recommend an incredibly reputable website that will give you a brief history-- Wikipedia:Summer Palace. (I hope you're reading this, Ms. Wassall!)

The pictures mostly speak for themselves, but here are a few that I think are particularly interesting:

In the background you can see the "Tower of the Fragrance of Buddha", which is really the centerpiece of the entire summer palace.  It stands at 41 meters high and consists of a three-storied octagonal structure. To get close enough to really see it you need to rent a boat and go out on Kunming Lake

This is the Marble Boat, or the Boat of Purity and Ease, whose solid marble frame was intended to represent the everlasting Qing dynasty. It was, however, destroyed during the second Opium war, and later restored. 

These guys were AMAZING. There's always tons of old men at the Summer Palace writing chinese poetry on the pathways. Some of them carry buckets of water to dip their brushes in, and some have water bottles attached that keep the tip damp I guess. Anyway, they write characters for hundreds of meters sometimes, its ridiculous.

This guy is extra cool because he does it double-time! Any of you who may have attempted traditional Chinese calligraphy before, you know its not easy--try doing it with this level of ambidexterity!