24/08/18 Today I meet with a group of 10 travellers to go to Mutianyu, where a portion of the Great Wall is open to the public. It is about 2h drive from Beijing centre, further than the most popular ones to be away from the crowd (considering it is still summer holiday season). This place is also special as they have cable cars and cable seats (like at the ski station) to get to the wall and a toboggan to slide down from the wall. The path and the stairs on the wall are challenging enough so those facilities allow tourist to get a bit further on the wall before being too exhausted. There are 20 towers open on this section and after a little lunch included at a local restaurant, we had about 3h to spend on the wall. The fittest of us could do 14 towers, I did about 10 and that was good enough for me, more than 28000 steps according to the counter app on my phone. We climbed at 12.30 so probably the hottest time of the day, and we had over 30 degrees again so we all sweat a lot. Water, sunscreen and a spare Tshirt were essentials to me!
On the way there, our guide, Emma, told us some history about the wall. The construction started in 700 and was finished around 1400. Multiple dynasties contributed to it and it is about 21000 km long. Some parts have disappeared, some are still untouched, some are partly or fully restored.
Emma offered to book tickets for us to a popular kungfu show that night for half price, at the Beijing Red Theatre which 2 British (Katie and Natalie) and a French (Camille) girls accepted with me. We were hoping to have time to take a shower and have dinner beforehand but we got stuck in traffic so made it just in time for the show once we reached the city with the minibus. The show was a beautiful story about an apprentice and performance about the kungfu art. The show has been going on for a while, they do 2 performance per night, every day, and that night was their 8315th representation!
After the show we finally got the chance to eat and stopped by a local restaurant with the 2 British (mother and daughter) who live in Australia and I took my chance to eat the famous Beijing duck which, despite the fact that I am not a big fan of duck, was quite nice.
