Today was a great day, it started out very early though (5am), having to get over to the train station. There are many ways to get to the Wall, and there are several spots along the wall that are open to the public. The section of wall we want to go to today is called Badaling. This section of the wall is quite popular, but also very beautiful.

Today Michael, and Hai-Jin are working, so I'm going to go to the wall with a guy that works for Atos Origin.

We caught the train at Beijing North station, and even got 1st class tickets, for 17 YEN each way. The train is actually quite modern, and has significant leg room, and features. The train ride should take about 1 hour from Beijing, north to Badaling. The train station itself, was not very up-to-date, and in many cases was paved for only 50%, the rest was muddy, or rocky, or you even had to walk across the tracks to exit the station.

Once the train got going the view was quite amazing, we even caught an early peak of the Great Wall. (most of those sections are not open to the public, and are not renovated.)

After arriving at the station we purchased our return ticket (ahead of time to beat the rush), and then went on to the entrance to the Great Wall. And when we got to the gate, we started our journey of waiting in line for the crowds ;-) This is an occurrence that will happen much throughout the day.

The ticket sign actually had a nice saying: (Free of charge for people with isabilities), not quite sure what those are, but maybe I have them?

This is the inside of the security gate, it's very busy to go through security, but overall it was much easier to get through than those around the Olympic Venues.

Here I am on the way to the top, the sign behind my head states the Olympic saying "One World, One Dream". The climb to the highest section of this wall is actually quite difficult, and a very long run. There are frequent places to stop, and it's advised to take your time.

This is a top down view of the entry area, which includes the ticket booth, and security checks. There are also many vendors there selling items like Water, and hats. This section of the wall is one of the most popular, as it's difficulty isn't the worst, but it has great views. There is a section of the wall with rock "attached", and on a very clear day you can see parts of Beijing. Beijing is about 65 KM's south east of this portion of the great wall. The wall was constructed in the 1400's, and renovated many times throughout the 1600's, and 1700's.

There are 8 watch towers that go up to the top, there is also a 9th, and 10th tower that starts to come back down the other side of the hill. The 7th tower is usually where a majority of people will stop for lunch, and then return back down the hill. We arrived at the Great Wall around 9am, so the crowd is actually quite light, and we found it much easier to go the Wall with this few people. There are a few places in the wall where there are sentry gates to the outside of the wall. The stairs on the inside of those gates have huge steps, as you can see in the second photo here. The third photo is a great view of the 8th tower.

This poor guy didn't do so well, and passed out right at the top of the 7th tower. When medic's were unable to wake him, they carried him down the Wall.

Here are two Panoramic photo's, the first one I left cut so that you could see the different high's and lows of the terrain. The second one is boxed in, and has a good view of the people walking on the Wall.

On the way back down the Wall at around Noon, you can see the amount of people has picked up, and it was actually quite slow. Then it started to rain (and a lot of rain is an understatement).

When the rain started pouring, we finally made it to the 3rd watch tower, which was crammed completely full with people. By pure luck we squeezed in as well, and found that we were stuck for about 20 minutes since there was no one really interested in going out in the pouring rain. There were about 30 or 40 people waiting outside the tower to get in, begging for everyone to squeeze in more so that they could fit as well. It took quite the squeezing, and negotiating of the crowd for us to get through on our way out. After some time we finally broke free of the tower, and ended up having a similar fight through Tower 1, and 2. Then we had the 800m walk to the train station, where it was flooded, and packed full. Luckily we bought our tickets earlier that day, so we were able to fin a seat, and wait until the train got there, and we could go home.

Overall it was a very good day, a little adventurous for the two non-Chinese folk, but we did well, found what we needed, and we even caught a cab to go get some Korean BBQ dinner.

-Chris