Day 5 - "I told you there'd be pizza!"

Day five of the trip brought with it the long-awaited trip(s) to the Great Wall. Being woken at 6:30 by an alarm is bad enough, but being woken at 5:30 by one of our course mates pretending to be a banshee, and then inviting us on a walk, is not an enjoyable experience.

Having no educational experiences planned for the day, we became full-on tourists, as evidenced by the numerous bum-bags and cameras that were carried by us all. Our first stop was the point where the Great Wall begins, where it stretches around 7m into the sea (at high tide, at low tide there is exposed land between the sea and the wall, but not much). This area was also very tourist-y, hence why we had to get to the site at an early time.

The site itself was rather large, as the Chinese tourism board clearly realised the potential for business, and so included whatever they could in the area, hence why there was the wall itself, a maze, a garden, a castle, a pagoda, and several other small areas. The maze was rather fun to navigate, and even though it was only just above my waist in terms of height, it was still quite difficult to navigate (this is legitimate navigation, not the jumping over walls stuff that I saw many people doing!).

The wall itself was clearly refurbished, but there was one part of the original wall which was kept in a glass box on view on the wall. The beach below the wall was lovely, and provided a nice spot for relaxation and reflection, as well as providing us with lovely views of the shipyard across the way, and the various ships waiting to enter the yard. However, we were all wise enough to not go for more than the tiniest of paddles in the water, as the large amount of heavy industry just across the water might have made the water a tiny weeny bit extremely polluted.

As we were not going to the next hotel until later in the evening, we had lunch on the coach, which led to some interesting combinations of bread rolls, questionable meats, crisps, and the occasional Werther's Original (thanks Will!). 

Our next stop was another part of the Wall, this time going over some mountains. Unlike other parts of the wall which can be incredibly busy, this section seems to be relatively unknown to tourists, and so we were all free to climb at our own pace without fear of losing sight of the group. The wall itself is rather impressive, with a width of around 8m, and a height of 9.5m. The gradient is also something to behold, going from almost flat through to one being unable to climb it without the use of one's hands and feet! The section we were at also required the use of 2 ladders in order to traverse a watch tower, which caused a large bottleneck as we had to wait for a (very!) extended Chinese family to descend before we could continue to ascend. 

There were two parts of the wall that we saw at the site, one which we walked on and were relatively safe on, and the old part which had not been restored and had no handrails, hence why we were not allowed to go onto it, regardless of how good any photos taken on it may have been.

High above the wall, along the mountain, was a temple, and seeing as we had at least another 2 hours before we needed to move out we all decided to go investigate. It was a long way to the top, but it was certainly worth it, as the views of both Shanhaiguan and the mountains were breathtaking. One thing I particularly noticed was the presence of many power stations along the coastline, and the large amount of smoke being emitted from their chimneys. China is still a very polluted country, and with so many power stations being visible in such a small area, it is not difficult to see why.

When we finally descended from the mountain using a handy cable car, it was time to head off to our next hotel, in preparation for tomorrow's flight. There was a rumour going round the bus on the way that there would be pizza available, and lo and behold as we pulled in to the hotel, we saw a holy grail, an ark of the covenant, the beautiful site that is, a Pizza Hut. Strangely enough, that was also where we ended up having dinner, which was heavenly given the amount of Chinese food we've been eating all week! There were some minor order mixups, but these were solved eventually!

Afterwards we took a stroll down to the beach and had a nice evening just watching the moon and walking up and down the beach, interrupted every now and again by people asking for our photographs!

Tomorrow we have a flight to our next destination, and so it's time for some rest! Night all!