5 months in China: The Great Wall

The first time I went to the Great Wall we took a tour bus in Chinese. It was an all day event, stopping at 2 sections of the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. The cost was straight transportation and did not include entrance fees.

This time my husband researched how to get there, since I wanted to take the kids. They know what the Great Wall is, it was in their Minnie goes to China book, plus they saw it out the window from the plane. We were going to take a train. How nice to sit down and watch the countryside go flying by.

We left the house 2 hours till train departure. Couldn't get 2 taxi's let alone 1 taxi to stop, so we took the bus to the subway. Transferred subway lines and at the stop before the one we needed, everyone was told to get off. This is the first time I've experienced this. When asked why, they said every other train is sent back to the train yard for repair/check-up? How inconvient! So now instead of a seat on a fairly empty car, we got onto an already filled car. Good thing we only had 1 stop to go.

We are running down the platform to make the train with minutes to spare! No seats available, standing room only in the dinning car! Oh well, we made it! We got there at 12:30pm and froze. Didn't think to bring winter hats or scarves. Had to buy overpriced scarves for the boys, put their hoods up. Got some meat on a stick and off to the cable car. Our thought get roundtrip tickets at 80 rmb and walk a bit at the top before coming back down. They told us they stopped selling roundtrip after noon, only one way. It's 1 pm and people are coming down. So either they are lying, or they want you to buy two 1-way tickets at 60 rmb each. I refused and warned off every other foreigner we passed heading to the cable car.

So we walked to the walking entrance of Badaling(this section of the Great Wall). Kids only walked a short portion and went down with Tao to wait and snack. My mom and I went up several lookouts more. Lots of foreigners, not many speaking English though.

The history: Took 2,000 years to build approx 5,500 miles! Started during the Warring State Period of 476 BC-221 BC through the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The part we see today is mainly from the Ming Dynasty. In 2002 they did a survey and only 30% of the Great Wall remains in good condition.