The Trace Left Behind

This adventure will forever be in my mind. I spent every second in awe, just wondering how mankind could build something this. It's very hard to put into words how I felt while I was walking on the wall. When you look at my pictures you see these tiny bricks. These bricks aren't so tiny once you get close to them. Will said that each brick was cooked down in the valley below us and carried up the mountain. These bricks are heavy, some weighing up to a ton and the wall just seems to go on forever. Just try to imagine millions of soldiers and citizens working on the wall way up on top of the mountains. It was an excellent way to spend my spring break, chilling with my good friend J Perry and hiking a world heritage site in its rawest form.

William referred to this hook as the Ram's Horn

Me squeezing by the bushes

The top of the wall is covered in loose rocks

How Wild is Wild

How Wild is Wild

If you want a tour you’ll never forget, William Lindesay is who you want to contact. He won’t embarrass you by walking around with a neon flag, but will constantly keep you interested and eager to carry on with his adventurous looks and sweet British accent. However, William isn’t for the faint hearted and his tour is called Wild Wall for a reason. Tourists who like doing non-tourist things, make sure you hit William up when you decide to take a trip to the Great Wall. It’s such a different experience from what people normally see when they visit the wall.

The Ming wall seems like it goes on forever.

The Biggest difference was the condition the wall was in. Unlike the government sponsored section of the Ming wall, our Ming wall was falling apart. The footpath on top of the wall was littered with bricks and resembled a backyard more than a wall. Instead of hearing on your left is the gift shop, I was hearing on your left and right is a shear thirty foot drop down a mountainside.

tight squeeze

So overgrown it blends in with the crumbling cliff

Going through the guard towers was a whole experience by itself. The guard towers tourists normally see are all fixed up and battle ready. If you want to go to the top, just walk up the cemented in stone stairs. Our guard towers weren’t like that. Most of the towers I went into had huge holes in the floor, walls and roof. The last tower we went into was so bad, our guide told us to hurry through it, in fear of it collapsing upon us. I have to admit, I was kind of afraid of being caved in at first.

Will pointing towards a guard tower

It was wild till the very end. When we got back from our four mile hike, everyone in our group was tired, sore, hungry and very dirty. Apparently, William knew this was going to be the outcome, so he came prepared by having for us ready to eat hot dumplings and cold drinks the moment we got back to base camp. Instead of the usual tourist packed restaurant, we were sitting in an authentic Chinese farm house, eating handmade fresh dumplings.

Wills Farmhouse

The Tamed Great Wall of China

The Tamed Wall of China

Since becoming a World Heritage site in 1987, the Great Wall has seen millions of tourists. The most common section of the Great Wall that people see is the Ming era section. This section has had the most renovations and is well preserved to attract tourists. According to Wikipedia, “The Great Wall, with all of its branches, stretches for 8,851.8 km (5,500.3 mi).” This makes restoration of the entire wall fiscally impossible so the government has to pick certain sections and restore those

Asia Travel.101 Ming Great Wall

There are two types of the Great Wall of China. There are formal parts, which according to Beijing Tours, “are officially open to the public with government administration in terms of security, toilets, parking, restaurants”. The other kind is informal, which is when restoration is very little to none. Those that tread the informal sections are subjected to the risks of loose rocks and pits.

Beijing tours Badaling

The Badaling is the most common section of the Ming Great Wall. There are no loose stones, or missing portions of walling. Everything looks pristine, there are hand railings and the cement is pearly white. I would be lying if I said my tour was like that. The Badaling also hosts the highest guard tower. There are parking lots and one doesn’t have to hike three miles through the woods and up a mountain to experience the wonder. There are tons of tour groups with price ranges from fifty dollars to two hundred. If you get hungry you can eat from a nearby restaurant, no Nalagenes and bagged lunches here.

The Great Wall in fog

Reference

"Great Wall of China." Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Web. .

"Great Wall Tour." Beijing Tours, Beijing Tour, Beijing China Tours - Beijing Travel Agency and China Tour Operator. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. .

Project Wall

Project Wall

I would like to compare my Great Wall of China experience to what the average tourist visiting China would of seen. Our guide Will, a known expert on the Great Wall of China, didn't stop talking about how this portion of the wall that I saw was so different from what the average tourist sees. His style of touring was more like a Moose hunt in Maine, hiking up rugged hills and walking on a slowly falling apart wall with holes and sudden drops.

The way I would like to set up my project would be to show my experience on the Great Wall through pictures that I took.

Ming era Great Wall of China

The endpoint of my walk on the Great Wall

Not bad for a couple hundred years old

The Rams Horn

Wild Will's mountain lodge

I haven't visited any other part of the wall, but I have seen many television shows on it and none of it was like what I saw. I'll use images from Google and other Great Wall internet sites and compare them to mine. I also plan on doing background investigation into how the Great Wall of China was made.

How I will bring China home

Which media environments and technologies will I use in documenting my China trip?

I will be using words and photographs to create a visual diary of my journeys. I would like it to turn out like a National Geographic article, lots of interesting pictures with information to explain what it is, why it's important etc...

What equipment/gear will I need to bring to capture my stories?

I will be bringing my laptop, with access to programs like image capture and iphoto. I will also be bringing along my camera and all kinds of lenses that will allow me to capture anything I want.

How will I capture and share my stories while traveling in China?

I plan on brining my camera with me everywhere. At the end of each day I'll upload my pictures to my programs and share them.

China for Dummies

Unfortunately, I don't know much about Chinese culture and or history. However, I do know some things. I know that nothing beats Chinese dim sum, or the peking dumpling. When I go to China this spring break, finding a good spot for dim sum and peking dumplings is one of my top priorities. I don't know how they manage to have such a perfect ratio of saltines to sweetness, but if you can somehow cook great chinese food....... you are a gift from god.

Rickshaw's Peking Duck Dumplings

China is considered one of the oldest civilizations and deserves credit for machinery that has changed the world, such as the compass and black powder for fireworks. The People's Republic of China is a communist state and holds the worlds fastest growing economy. By reading the news, I've come to the conclusion that China is a growing world power and quickly is being recognized by Washington as a growing global military machine.

Chinese Tanks

www.daily.com

I don't know about you, but I've heard some rather ugly things about China. Most of these are probably untrue, but nonetheless they have an impact on my perception on China. Over the past few years American news has been covered with stories about poisonous Chinese products and the overall cheapness of their quality. I personally believe this, just by purchasing goods from China. Last summer, American news had a field day on poisonous milk being sold to babies. I don't trust Chinese products and find the label "made in China" to be iffy and a huge deterrent.