Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Great Wall Revisited

About three weeks ago I got a visit from my director and he wanted to see some of the "real" China, not the standard tourist sites. So I thought it would be a good idea for us to visit The Wall.

We drove to JingShanLing and then climbed the wall to SiMaTai. This is the same 10K route that I took this past spring and it was nice to see how different it was at this time of year. It was also good to see it for a second time from a different perspective after living here for over 7 months.


The beginning of the trail (I think the banner says something to the effect of: "You are about to experience the ultimate "Stairmaster" workout!" ;-)

There are really no flat spots just a massive roller-coaster of stone




The view from here is breathtaking
This is the lake at the end of the trail

I will tell you that even though I had lost 15kg in body weight the wall was still every bit as difficult as it was the first time! We did however complete the route in nearly half the time that it took the first trip, 3hrs 20min compared to 6hrs!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

thunder I am so glad to see new pictures and a new story and as usually they are great and I love them.Card came it's time to service your bike.STEB will be mad because he is not first. Just kidding. Hope you are felling better.Smoken

R.Powers said...

The wall is impressive, but wow, congrats on those lost kilograms!

Thunder said...

Smoken - Already serviced it while I was back home, glad you liked the new post!

FC - Thanks and thanks!

Anonymous said...

yes thats the kind of stuff i like to see. Glade your feeling better too.

Anonymous said...

glad to see the down tme is being spent catching up with your bolg,long time no words.dose the wall have a shorter verishion.STEB

Thunder said...

Anonymous - Thanks whoever you are!

STEB - Trying to get caught up now!

JT said...

Dave, great, great pics!

It looks like you guys are making the most of this awesome opportunity, wow. Glad you're back to posting, I'll be checking in regularly...

--jay