The Meal: On Monday we received a text message from Dave inviting us to go with him and four friends to see the Great Wall, and of course we said yes. We took the subway to the end of Line 13 where we met up with Dave, Doris, Alexander, Crysta and Kirk. We then walked to the train station went to the ticket office, purchased our tickets to Badaling, where a popular part of the wall is located. Because we had to wait an hour and a half for the next train we went for lunch at a Korean restaurant. It was located on the sixth floor of a six story shopping mall. Our meals came served on a one inch thick stone plate hot from the oven – and they were delicious!
Left to right: Paul, Dave, Kirk, John, Doris, Crysta, Alexander
One view of the mall
Another view of the mall
The Trip: After the meal we went to the train station to Platform 4 and left for the trip to the mountains and the Great Wall. The platform area went on forever – it was the largest covered area we have ever seen. Our train was new, modern, spacious and very comfortable. It was such a smooth ride that some people even napped along the way. The trip to Badaling took just over an hour at a cost of 17 RMB($2.80). The pictures below tell the story of the train system.
Just a part of the platform area
One of the trains
Kathy heading for our train
A view of the interior of our car
Doris, Alexander and Paul are ready to go.
The Wall: We arrived at the wall around 2:30 and regrouped to discuss which way to proceed. At Badaling there is a valley fort and the wall rises up both the north and south slopes of the valley. WE started up the north slopes first but in a while we noticed its south slope had far less people and also seemed steeper. Kirk suggested we go against the flow of people and so we went to climb the south side of the valley. The south side was very steep and in some places the steps were like rungs of a ladder. You could not help but marvel at the time and effort it took to build such a structure. Just the walk to the highest turret was exhausting and our legs felt like lead, but we reached the highest point and felt very proud of ourselves! After a short rest we headed back down-a much easier task for sure.
After a marvelous day we all caught a taxi back home to rest up for our next adventure!
Awesome! The video is really great.
It’s funny to see you write that someone texted you, hehe.
Thanks for the compliment. As you know it takes some time and work to get it all done.
Yeah, Dave started it so I had to figure out how to do it on my phone, and now I’m pretty good- can even do periods, question marks, and capital letters. LOL