When we arrived at the Wall, it wasn't too busy yet. Me and the Japanese guy took the "steep" route. Because of time constraints, we didn't make it all the way to the top, but we were very close. By the time we were close to the top, I was out of breath and sweating profusely. The weather wasn't too bad (about 75 degrees). Luckily, it wasn't blazing hot. It took us about an hour and twenty minutes to get almost to the top and then back to the bottom. When we got to the bottom, there were many more tourists and the smog had obscured much of the wall on the other side. The Great Wall was cool, but for some reason I expected it to be more impactful. It was picturesque, but I expected more.
After the Wall, we headed to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. A total of 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors were buried in this area. At present, you can only visit three of the tombs. The bodies of the emperor's aren't actually in the Tombs- they are buried deep in the mountains surrounding the Tombs. By "Tombs", they mean shrines/temples to the Emperors. This part of the tour was too brief. There wasn't that much to see.
 |
| Changling Tomb |
 |
| Changling Tomb
In addition to the Wall and Tombs, the tour also consisted of trips to a jade factory, a silk factory and a tea-house. All were interesting to tour, however, after each, you were put into a showroom for an hour and pressured to buy overpriced souvenirs at each. After awhile, this got really annoying. In total, the trips to the souvenir places lasted longer than the actual historical/cultural part.
|
 |
| Jade carver |
 |
| Jade Showroom |
 |
| Tea House |
 |
| Tea House gift shop |
Justin
No comments:
Post a Comment