Great Wall & Olympic Green

Today we are getting a tour of the Great Wall; we were joined by locally engaged staff for a big team building day. We lucked out and had the most beautiful day for walking the Great Wall, the sun was beautiful – nice and warm but not scorching; the wind was mild, which was rare. All in all, the best condition for a little mountain climbing.

The bus ride to the Great Wall was a little over 2 hours; not too bumpy but I was still car sick. I was just beginning to be concerned about how I was to climb up to the Great Wall, especially after hearing that the area of the Great wall we were visiting was steeper than the most popular segment of the wall. Just then, we arrived, and we were given tickets to a cable lift!! What a blessing, we got to see the gorgeous scenery in the comfort of a ski lift! J To get to the lift, we walked through a bustling sidewalk market of trinkets and souvenir items. This is the familiar sight of any tourist attraction; I’d expected nothing less J Prominently displayed were not only souvenirs of the Great Wall, but also the 5 mascots of the Beijing Olympics…

Effortlessly, we got to the top of the mountain and found ourselves at the foot of the Wall. On the way up, I also had a sneak peak of the toboggan slides which I would eventually use as my transportation down the mountain. It wound through the landscape of the mountain and appeared to be endless… I wonder if it has the Guinness world record of the longest toboggan ride (without the snow…) ;p It looked like so much fun; that alone could be a tourist attraction. How ingenius!

The view of the Great Wall, and from the Great Wall were both breath taking. The pictures don’t begin to do it justice; not even the postcards do – you really have to come and see it for yourself. The walk is pleasant given the nice weather. What I found funny were the tiny little stone steps which constantly threatened to trip me and make me fall or twist an ankle!! And the fact that there were so so so many of those!! J

My toboggan ride down was every bit as fun as I anticipated, if not more. I thought the speed may be slightly scary, but each cart had control of the speed. The brake worked so well it was never scary for even me. I almost wished I could go up and try it again, only I’d do it faster next time.

Next the group had a tree planting ceremony at the Olympic Green, which is a Forest park being constructed right now. It began 2.5yrs ago and is finally nearing completion. The magnitude of the project was not appreciated until we got there. I don’t remember the specifics of sizes of land, but I remember there are 300,000 trees planted in the park. The land was originally farm land north of Beijing, on the outer edge of the city. It sits directly north of the Tian’anmen square – the center line of the city. The trees are still being planted; young trees are still supported by sticks. Here is a link where you can read more about it in terms of environmental motivations of this project.
http://archrecord.construction.com/ar_china/BWAR/0604-15_BeijingOlympic.asp

The park won’t be open to public until after the Olympics is over; the fact that we are visiting it right now really speaks to our VIP status J I learned during our tour that not only were we allowed to visit, the landscape designer herself was there to tell us stories and explain the concept!! Quite a rare treat. Here I’ll share some with you:

There are several hundred ancient trees in the park which have been moved from the Three Gorges area before that area was flooded. Most of those rescued trees are thousands of years old, and have been moved to Shanghai/Pudong; the ones that are suited for northern climate were moved to this park. I took picture of the ones we spotted. Each tree had to be carefully transported and replanted; the challenges were interesting. Apparently they avoided pruning any branches to preserve the original shape of the tree and not harm its growth. This meant great difficulties getting the trees through narrow roadways such as toll booth or overpasses. The solution? Each tree was transported individually in trucks, lying down in transit. Each was followed by a crane, so it can be lifted up from the truck to pass over the obstacle vertically and then lowered in the truck again afterwards. Amazing? Considering how many trees were moved this way, it is darned incredible!

The lake in the park is designed to be the shape of a dragon. The entire lake was dug from scratch and they had to dig really deep to get the water. The landscaping was beautiful, including a waterfall feature amongst pretty rocks. The tree we planted was in a prominent position near the “dragon” J

We saw one heritage home being re-built in the park. There will be 40 of these houses in the park, each were disassembled piece by piece carefully at its original location across the country, and then meticulously numbered. Then the pieces were transported to the park and were re-assembled like fitting pieces of the puzzle together. The details in the material all over the house we saw were amazing; hand carved hundreds of years ago yet still in great condition. The particular house we came upon was still under re-construction; it is destined to be a coffee house and should be completed in 2 months. We are hoping to go and enjoy a cup of coffee there before we have to leave at the end of our post J

Well, there are many other interesting things about the park, I certainly don’t remember it all and can’t even put everything I remember down. I’m just glad I got to see it before it is even open to public….

For dinner, 5 of us went to look for a light but authentic meal. We passed in front of a Taiwanese restaurant that appeared very promising. We had noodles, wonton, various dishes, drinks, even beer, and came to a bill of only 37Yuan a person. Which is equivalent to about $5.5 CAD. We were all stuffed, and thoroughly enjoyed the tasty meal. Food can certainly be cheap in Beijing if you know where to look J

To complete our local resident experience, we shopped in a local supermarket. It was so big and cheap! I bought laundry detergent and went home to discover that doing laundry with the washing/drying machine here can be the toughest challenge! There are about 500 positions on the knobs and buttons, none of them are labeled in any comprehensible way, if at all. Doing laundry was the art of lucky guessing and creative interpretation of funny symbols. So far of all the intelligent people the BCCP has hired and who live in Lee Garden, no one has had an easy time with this particular piece of essential but troubling equipment :P Once you get past this point, there is the question of how to open the door after the washing & drying is done. Many have had their washed laundry trapped in the machine over-night or longer!!! And should you be unlucky enough to have clothes that are not fully dried, you’ll probably need to wash it again to try it again as no one can figure out if doing drying alone is even possible. Is that not fun?!