Today we're going to the Great Wall!

As we stepped outside, you could see what I first thought must have been the moon, it was so small, but later I realised it must have been the sun.

The sky was quite dusty.

A dusty sun

We drove out North West of Beijing towards Badaling, passing by the olympic site on the 4th ring road, and then along the Badaling Expressway.

This sign is everywhere

A toll booth on the expressway

The first stop before the Great Wall was the Ming Tombs.

First there was a huge park that started with a huge gate, then a pathway past various animal figures, particularly lions and elephants.







And then thru a small town to the tombs proper.

In fact, there are thirteen of them, the one we went to was the Changling tomb.

Thru the streets of a small Chinese town

Our travel group dressed in imperial Chinese clothes

The giant tomb, now a museum

Emperor Yongle/Chengzu/Chang

Ceremonial headdress

View of the valley

Then we travelled back to the highway and to a nearby city for lunch.

Parking in itself was a bit of an adventure.

When we had parked and found a restaurant, we had, in order, broccoli, spicy pork intestines with whole chillies, spicy tofu, individual seasoned pork ribs, bacon with green shoots in black bean sauce, and special fried rice. Was all delicious, and the pork intestines were surprisingly good. The flavour from the chillies was awesome, if a little too spicy.

We parked here, on a main street

Lunch: chilli pork on the left, ribs at the back, bacon and shoots at the front

And then back on the road to Badaling and the Great Wall!

We parked at the bottom, evaded yet more street sellers ("Hello, hello! You want water!?"), bought tickets, and started the walk up.

The walk to the nearest part of the wall isn't too far, but the wall is some 6,000 kilometres long, so there's some scope for a walk if you want one!

Probably the most lasting impression is the sheer size of it. To think how many people they would have needed to build it.

Several sections are also quite steep to walk up, and I doubt they had the hand rails back then!

Back on the road to the Great Wall

At the forecourt

Me at the Great Wall

Mind the slope!

The view from the top of the section we climbed

After getting back down, I had a look in the shops. Not much of interest. The same old stuff.

Also went to go to the toilet, but the basket for clean toilet paper had some not so clean paper in it. Decided to wait. :-)

When we got back to Beijing, I went for a walk around the diplomatic compound.

There were lots of Western food places, including Sizzler, Baskin and Robins, Subway, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and of course McDonalds.

Most of the foreign embassies were also nearby. I saw the Sri Lankan, Slovenian, Czech, Austrian, and Cuban, but doubtless there were lots of others too.

The Cuban one was interesting, as it had photos of Fidel Castro making friends with the Chinese leadership.

Haagen Dazs and Sizzler, who's hungry? :-)

Starbucks and Subway, are you sure we're in China?

The Sri Lankan Embassy

The Austrian Embassy

The Cuban Embassy

The Australian embassy, however, is a suburb to the North at Dongzhimen.

Then I went to the nearby Silk Street market again, to look for watches and jewelry and get some groceries.

Came back with none of those, but did get the picture of the Great Wall I was looking for and a Tommy Hilfiger jumper.

Tomorrow I'm off to Shanghai!