Day 5: The Great Wall

Thursday, August 21, 2008

We woke up Thursday to what appeared to be genuine rain. I say “genuine” because Beijing’s comprehensive cloud-seeding program often makes it difficult to distinguish between rain induced by silver-iodide and the real stuff. However, judging by the monsoon-like conditions, this was undoubtedly an honest-to-goodness storm. The timing was a bit unfortunate, because today we hired a driver and van to take us to the Great Wall. Everyone took it in stride, however, and the plethora of ponchos that we brought and received from the Bank of America swag bags did their duty well.

Our driver was a friendly man named Mr. Wang whose “van” was actually more bus-like, capable of seating fifteen people. Mr. Wang told Luke that he had been doing rather well for himself during the Olympics, taking a lot of groups up to the Wall and other sites around Beijing. His most recent passenger, in fact, was George Bush Sr.’s bodyguard and his family (on bodyguard-ing break, one would suppose).

The section of the Wall we went to is called Mutianyu, about an hour and fifteen minute drive outside of the city. Our original plan had been to go to a small guesthouse near an undeveloped portion of the Wall that Luke and Ethan had been to last summer. A family runs the guesthouse, and the husband, Mr. Wei, takes tourists (mostly foreigners) up the mountain to see a ruinous, tree-covered version of the Wall. Unfortunately, for the Olympics the government has completely cracked down on such “unofficial” wall sites, and the wife (Mrs. Chun) told me that all visitors, even visitors to the guesthouse, were completely forbidden. It was a shame to hear, and also sad for Mr. Wei and Mrs. Chun, since the guesthouse and guide service makes up a large part of their livelihood.

The Great Wall is still, however, the Great Wall, and pretty much any section is jaw-droppingly beautiful. It was still pouring when we arrived, so we decided to take the cable car to avoid getting completely soaked (not to mention the slick stairs up to the top). The weather actually had a nice visual effect: fog and mist coming over the mountain would occasionally obscure the guard towers, only to be blown away again to reveal the stone structures. The mist would also get caught behind the wall as the wind came up over the mountain. Apparently the wall stops more than just Mongol invaders!

After descending, Tia, Aarik, and Grant bought some treasures at the collection of tourist stands at the bottom of the Wall. Luke and Ethan gorged themselves on jiānbǐng, a Beijing-style crepe topped with egg, fried dough, plum sauce, scallions, and hot pepper sauce. The snack used to be everywhere on the streets in Beijing, but according to the proprietor the government has virtually eliminated all street food vendors. Even she had to have a nutrition certificate. Despite the snacking, we also stopped for lunch at a small place on our way back to Beijing.

Around 7:00, we made our way back to the National Stadium to watch track and field events. It was exciting as usual, though of course sad not to see Aarik out their competing. It was quite a mixed night for Team USA, with an incredible 1-2-3 finish in the 400 meters, but astonishing failures for the US relay teams, with the men and women both botching the final baton exchange. The whole stadium gasped, twice. It was pretty tragic, particularly considering how hard those athletes worked.