One Giant Stairmaster

Sunday morning, Lili and I met Amy B in the lobby along with other ASME conference attendees, and piled into the bus to see the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. It was about a 1.5 hour drive out there since traffic was bad. The bus pulled up to the closest section of the wall from Beijing. From there, we embarked on our journey to the highest point we could see from the tour bus parking lot.

The Great Wall is amazing. Not only is it long, but it goes across the tallest peaks as it traverses across the country. Although it has been rebuilt numerous times since it was first commisioned, it is still an amazing feat. AmyB, Lili, and I started up the long flight of stairs up to the distant watch tower. The steps are not uniform, and some of them are very steep. The wall twists and turns, and there are few landings in between each building along the wall. It's just a straight up climb. I started sweating about 10 minutes into it. The only reprieve came when there was building, where we would occasionally stop and take pictures from. We weren't able to pass too many people on our climb up. There were some other tourists climbing with walking sticks, and I thought "wow, they are smart".

The three of us, after 1.5 hours, eventually made it to the top most watch tower. I was tired. My quads were burning and trembling beneath me, trying to hold me upright. The view from the wall was unfortunately hazy that day. We couldn't see much of anything. But at the top, I was just happy that I had made it up that far; never mind that the tour buses looked tiny from up above. I realized that the Chinese who built this wall had to be extremely fit in order to get everything up the mountain. And those who guarded the wall also had to have been very fit...or at least had really strong legs.

Once we caught our breath, we tackled the way down. Weaving among the sea of tourists attempting to climb the wall, my legs shook with each step I took. I thought that at any moment, I would tumble down the Great Wall. That would have been quite the story...but I managed to climb back down uneventfully. It only took us 30 minutes to get back down. We still had time before the bus would leave, but I don't think any of us wanted to attempt any part of the wall again.

The rest of the day, we were at the Ming Tombs. We went to one of the three open tombs, and walked the grounds, and went underneath into the tomb itself. It was hard to hear our tour guide since there were about 4 other flag bearing tour guides leading their tours into the tomb. I just kicked back and thought that this was a lot for people to have to go through in order to get buried during the Ming Dynasty. And to think that were 13 more that were like this tomb was slightly mind boggliing.