Great Wall

Somehow my wife and I get addicted to China since the first time we visited Shanghai a couple of years ago. So when it comes toward the end of the year we will start thinking about where to go, surveying the available China tours and calling the tour agencies for more details for comparison. I suppose the autumn is calling us, and somehow the chilling weather although is killing, it is something that we kind of looking forward to.

Just came back from Beijing after a weeklong tour. The weather was fine during the first few days although it turned somewhat hazy and becoming cooler by the end of last week. Fortunately both of us were not affected by stomach upset unlike our first visit to China a few years ago notably due to very cool weather especially when it was approaching winter and also oily food.

The sky was as clear as ours when we arrived at Beijing on 19 October albeit a bit cool. But as usual, it was walking after walking as there were too many interesting places to cover in a day. It was very tiring on the first day as after a 6-hour flight from KL, we straight away went to the Museum Palace a.k.a Forbidden City. A very elderly gentleman was actually lost his way when we visited the Forbidden City ending up the local tour guide had to spend almost an hour to locate the 78-year old man. It was so crowded in the Forbidden City, you could easily get lost if you go a bit slow. In another instance when we visited the Temple of Heaven, an elderly couple were unable to get into the temple as they were too slow at the back and the guard refused to let them in as the tour guide was holding the tickets and the guard was just counting the number of people following at the back of the tour guide who held the tickets.

Beijing is such a wonderful place to visit especially after the Olympics as there are more tourist attractions such as Bird Nest, the Cube and etc. But what I like the most is the Great Wall. It was amazing to see the Great Wall which was built in the Qin Dynasty to protect the empire against the intrusion of the enemies could last the centuries of sandstorms and also the kampong folks of digging the bricks for their own use. But then again most of the Great Wall that can be seen today is actually that built and rebuilt during Ming and Qing Dynasty. The wall around Beijing is especially strong to protect the Capital City of Beijing for so many centuries. It was very windy at the Great Wall, rendering it a bit unsafe to climb. My wife was only able to reach to the second stage and thereafter she was afraid of height and unable to proceed further. “不到长城非好汉” despite of my leg aching, I continued to climb further up to the summit to fulfill my dream of being a tough guy (好汉).