Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 5 – OK, it is a pretty great wall
We went to bed around 8:30 last night. Seemed like a good plan. At 3:30, we were both wide awake. We both used the restroom and managed to sleep a little more before our 5:30 alarm.
We grabbed breakfast at the buffet and then got ready for the planned 7:30 departure. This group seems to be well-organized and prompt. We were all on the bus and ready to go on time.
None of that mattered.
Today was the first working day after the eight-day national holiday. It seemed that every one of Beijing's roughly 22 million people was on the road. Traffic was absolutely a mess. Oliver said that the trip was 70 kilometers and would take about 90 minutes. We weren't even close to being out of Beijing in 90 minutes.
We did have time to drive past the Olympic Park, where we saw some of the structures from the Olympics. The photos aren't great because, like yesterday, it was pouring rain once again.
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| The Bird's Nest |
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| The Olympic Tower |
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| The Olympic Cauldron in the distance (and rain) |
Ultimately, we got on a highway and finally started actually driving.
It took around two hours to make it to the Great Wall. We visited the wall at Badaling. The weather was in the low 50s with pouring rain. It wasn't an ideal day to visit, but it was our day.
You don't have to walk up to get to the wall at Badaling. We took an escalator up to a platform.
There, we boarded a funicular for the short ride to the wall.
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| The station at the top of the funicular |
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| Chairman Mao's writing about climbing the wall |
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| This part of the wall is fully restored |
We walked up for a short bit, and we're suddenly standing on the Great Wall of China.
Built over 2,000 years and spanning more than 13,000 miles, the Great Wall of China is the largest manmade structure in the world. China claims you can see it from space, but that myth has been disproven, even by China's first astronaut. The wall is only between 19 and 21 feet wide, and its color blends seamlessly into the surrounding area, making it essentially impossible to spot from space.
The Great Wall of China is one of the seven modern wonders of the world, and the fifth that we have visited, along with the Taj Mahal, the Coliseum in Rome, Petra in Jordan, and Machu Picchu in Peru. We will visit the pyramids at Chichen Itza in Mexico in 2026 and Christ the Redeemer in Brazil in 2027 to complete the list.
Our group stopped for a group photo before heading out for a couple of hours of independent exploration.
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| Our guide said the fog added to the mystery of the wall - it was a nice sales job |
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| Actually, it did add a little mystique |
We started our journey at Watchtower Number Five.
Arlona opted to walk to tower number seven. I elected to stay behind. It's only been eleven weeks since my left total knee replacement, and I was feeling the ramps and stairs. It's best to listen to your body.
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| Off she goes |
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| Watchtower number six |
When Arlona got back, she was a little lightheaded. The combination of cool temps, warm clothes, humidity, and exertion took its toll. She rested and drank some water, and that brought her around.
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| That's Watchtower four, way up there |
It was enough that she wisely decided not to climb the steep slope to tower number four, so we opted to take the funicular back down and browse the gift shops.
The sidewalk was lined with interesting sculptures.
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| Nothing screams China like KFC, Subway, and Starbucks |
We made a short ride to our lunch stop. The restaurant was collocated with a jade factory. It was almost like they planned it that way.😀
We enjoyed a nice, family-style Chinese lunch, complete with seemingly endless plates of food on a huge lazy Susan. We had chicken, beef, pork, fish, veggies, and more, and of course, Chinese beer.
They also served us a small shot of a local 112-proof liquor. It had all the charm of paint thinner.
After lunch, we went back down to the jade factory and made a small contribution to the local economy.
Our final stop for the day involved a walk down the Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs. All the emperors of the Ming Dynasty are buried in a series of widely scattered Tombs in a huge tomb complex. We were unable to visit the Tombs, but did walk down the Sacred Way.
We entered through the Stele Pavilion.
Inside the pavilion, we saw a marble turtle with the head of a dragon, called a bixi. It carried a large tablet of writings.
Proceeding along the Sacred Way, we were flanked by stone sculptures.
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| The statues alternated between sitting and standing |
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| The statues were pretty sizable |
We reached the end of the Sacred Way and boarded our bus for the ride back to the hotel.
The temperature has dropped about 15 degrees since we arrived in Beijing. Our hotel had been comfortable, but today, the room was cold. The thermostat said it was 68°F. We set it for 72° and waited for the heat to kick in. And waited. And waited. Nothing. We bumped it to 74° with the same result. Finally, we kicked it all the way up to its max of 80° and still, nothing happened. I went down to the desk and, with the help of Google Translate, explained our situation.
Then a maintenance person was sent to our room. He fiddled with the thermostat and felt the air. He fiddled some more and felt the air again. Then, he set it to 70° and said that we had it too high, so it was automatically cooling the air. Huh? Even with Google Translate, we couldn’t agree on how to raise the room temperature. The doorbell rang, and another worker brought in a space heater. But it was a radiant heater, not a forced-air model. This meant it heated only one corner of the room, and without the main climate control’s blower running, it didn’t really heat the entire room. I turned the fan on, and the technician said I would be cooling the heated air. Again, huh? It became clear that the Ritz-Carlton didn’t have working heat. I rode the elevator back to the room after talking with the front desk and mentioned to the other Viking guests in the elevator that we were having temperature issues. They said they hadn’t been able to adjust the temperature in their rooms either. We will just have to deal with the lack of heat in the room for two more nights.
We had decided to pass on the optional evening excursion to a local restaurant for Peking Duck. Neither one of us is particularly fond of duck. That meant we had dinner on our own. We went downstairs to the lounge. It was also cold, like our room. Arlona wasn’t very hungry, so we ordered a burger. It came with a small salad and fries. I ate the burger, and Arlona ate the salad and a few of the fries.
We came back to find our room holding on at 72°, and we can’t get it any warmer than that.
Our excursion tomorrow starts at 9:20, so we can take it a little slower tomorrow morning. We will visit the Temple of Heaven, a large religious complex built in the early 1400s at the same time as the Forbidden City. It is said to have incredible architecture and symbolism. We’re hoping it won’t be raining, but the forecast doesn’t look good.
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