The Great Great Wall
I had a better time today, visiting the Great Wall and the Cheng Long Mausoleum. I woke at 6 this morning, to the sweet sound of my brother and the driver snoring in concert, each one apparently trying to outdo the other. Needless to say I entertained thought of pouring ice water down their necks but didn’t, and ended up not in the best of moods during breakfast. The journey to the Wall took about ½ an hour by car, during which we passed the time by telling (blonde) jokes and (not blonde) riddles as well as discussing the relative merits of each character in a movie. (We were travelling with another family which my father somehow got to know. The three kids are Jon, Joanna, and Amanda.)
The Great Wall was great (well, duh). The scenery was incredible, and I’ve photographs to prove it; the sun was shining brightly; it was warm—I sweated; and the incline wasn’t too steep. It’s more like lots and lots of flights of stairs piled together, really. A strong wind was blowing, but that only added to the general niceness of the place; every bit of snow we threw did a U-turn and cart-wheeled right back at the thrower. My father took lots of photos, as usual; [edit: I have 1486 photos of China. /edit] so did Jon, but he accidentally erased all of his from his own digital camera. He cried about it but soon calmed down and cheered up, thank God. I would have hated to spend hours in a car accompanied by sniffles.
The mausoleum wasn’t too bad, either, but it seemed an awful lot of space just to commemorate and house the corpses of one emperor, one empress, and any number of concubines. It was still nice, though; the architecture is good, the furniture better, and the powdery snow everywhere best of all. The children, including me, played with it like mad, and ended up having to shake tonnes of crushed ice off our clothes before entering the car for a 1 ½ hour ride. Otherwise it’d have melted and made puddles. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
We set off tomorrow for a meeting between my father and a customer in Tianjin, which is a neighbouring area. I’ll be just as cold as here, but probably much more boring. Oh dear me.
The Great Wall was great (well, duh). The scenery was incredible, and I’ve photographs to prove it; the sun was shining brightly; it was warm—I sweated; and the incline wasn’t too steep. It’s more like lots and lots of flights of stairs piled together, really. A strong wind was blowing, but that only added to the general niceness of the place; every bit of snow we threw did a U-turn and cart-wheeled right back at the thrower. My father took lots of photos, as usual; [edit: I have 1486 photos of China. /edit] so did Jon, but he accidentally erased all of his from his own digital camera. He cried about it but soon calmed down and cheered up, thank God. I would have hated to spend hours in a car accompanied by sniffles.
The mausoleum wasn’t too bad, either, but it seemed an awful lot of space just to commemorate and house the corpses of one emperor, one empress, and any number of concubines. It was still nice, though; the architecture is good, the furniture better, and the powdery snow everywhere best of all. The children, including me, played with it like mad, and ended up having to shake tonnes of crushed ice off our clothes before entering the car for a 1 ½ hour ride. Otherwise it’d have melted and made puddles. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
We set off tomorrow for a meeting between my father and a customer in Tianjin, which is a neighbouring area. I’ll be just as cold as here, but probably much more boring. Oh dear me.
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