Mutianyu in the Mist

If you've been reading the blog and gotten this far, you may have been wondering, "when are they getting to Mutianyu..." or "what's Mutianyu?" or "couldn't they have come up with a better name for the blog?" Well today, the mystery that is Mutianyu was answered (at least for us)... sort of.

Mutianyu is one of the five restored sections of the incomprehensible 10,000 kilometer Great Wall of China. At one point, nearly 20% of China's population was working on it. This section is less accessible from downtown Beijing, therefore it's less frequented by tourists and more fun to explore. The reason that the mystery was only partially answered is that it was a rainy, foggy day and the wall only partially emerged from the mist.

To get a feel for how grand this wall is, we had to set out on a hike along it (after a fun chairlift up to the wall from down below). In this section the wall rises and falls over steep terrain so it's a jumble of steps and steep climbs made even more challenging by the slick surface. But we had a ball hiking from observation tower to observation tower (we made it to eight) over about 1 and 1/2 hours. You can only begin to get a sense of the ridiculous scale of this barrier to defend against the old enemies to the north. But we did our best. Finally, Mutianyu. Wahoo!