The Wall

Today dawned clear and sunny. In fact, it was the clearest day I'd
ever experienced in China. The sky was a sparkly blue, the air seemed
relatively clear and there were only a few fluffy white clouds.

In other words, it was almost a picture perfect day for the Great
Wall... once we got through all the traffic of course. Traffic in
Beijing is something to experience. Not only does it move at a snails
pace for no apparent reason, other than the obvious ridiculous number
of cars on the road, but there is no such thing as rules of the road.
Lights, lines, lanes - those are all merely suggestions. A honk
doesn't mean "excuse me, coming through" here. No, a honk means "I'm
coming through no matter what, so you best get out of the way".

Our bus crawled along for an hour and a half before it hit some
semblance of open road. Just when we really started to role, we hit
the jade factory. There are 6 sections of the wall open up to public
viewing. It doesn't matter how you choose to visit the Wall or what
section you choose to see, you will stop at a jade factory. It's part
of the experience, so no sense fighting it.

Of course, the jade factory with all these intricate carvings with big
signs saying DO NOT TOUCH is just one big land of temptation to a
toddler. Kohji and I took turns trying to prevent Ren from riding a
jade tiger or jumping on a massive carved frog. Although, there was
one unexpected benefit from all the carvings of tigers and crocodiles -
Ren learned the word teeth. For the better part of an hour, he was
running around the place staring into the faces of one snarling animal
or another, pointing to his own grinning mouth and saying 'teef'.

For my part, I tried to find something suitable to replace the jade
bangle I had bought on our last trip. There is a tradition in China
for mothers to wear jade bracelets which they hand down to their
daughters. I had bought a lovely one that I was admiring in our
kitchen shortly after arriving home back in 2006, with a wee little
Kiyomi in my arms. I handed her the bangle, despite Kohji's words of
caution, and just as I was smugly saying to Kohji that the bracelet
was indestructable, Kiyomi dropped it and I had three lovely pieces of
jade on the kitchen floor. I wisely decided against the bangle this
time in favour of something a little less shatterable.

The jade factories are interesting placed catering uniquely to
visitors to the Wall by providing shopping and a restaurant on site.
The factory effectively serves people until mid-afternoon after which
I guess it's too late for visitors to the Wall. When we were leaving
at a little before 2, they were shutting down the place.

Miraculously, the weather stayed bright and clear for our entire visit
to the Wall, as the pictures show. Our last visit was completely
socked in, and the only views we were able to get were into the fog.
This time, we were able to see the Wall snake along the ridge of the
hills and climb towards the heavens. With Ren in the carrier and
Kiyomi all primed for an adventure (as she put it), we set out to
climb a relatively short section at Juyyonguan. While the climb
itself was much shorter and less onerous than the section we climbed
last time, it did provide a magnificent view of the Wall across the
valley. And it was obviously the perfect length for Kiyomi who
chattered away the whole way up, with periodic stops to yell at the
others in our group behind - "You ok guys? It's ok that I'm the
fastest you know." Ren, on the other hand, was conscious for about
the first 5 minutes of the climb. Poor kid made it to the top of a
section of the Great Wall, and was out cold for the entire thing.

Once again, the temperature was much more forgiving than our last Wall
excursion and there were very few people. In fact, when we reached
the top of our little section, we were effectively alone for the full
10 minutes or so we were up there. I didn't think it was possible to
be alone anywhere in China.

While I stood on this momentus piece of history, what I marveled at
most was not the fact that the Qing emperor built this massive
architectural marvel across 5000 kilometers, not the number of lives
lost in order to construct it across the backs of mountains, not even
the fact that it all proved to be a useless endeavour as the Mongols
still managed to invade China and place two Mongolian emperors on the
throne. Nope, what amazed me was the commodification of the place. I
was almost tempted to buy my "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt while
I was sucking on my popsicle beside what was once a massive watch
tower, but thought better of it.

After some rejuvenating ice cream, we all climbed onto the bus for the
50 kms or so ride back to Beijing. Unfortunately, the ride turned
into a 3 hour crawl through Beijing traffic. The trip was a harbinger
of what the 13+ hour flight will be with Ren, and it ain't pretty.
Now, if we could only manage to have buses and trucks appear out the
airplane windows, we might be ok. Kiyomi, on the other hand, wanted
to sit at the front of the bus, so she plopped herself down beside one
of the other moms on the front row and proceeded to chatter for the
next hour. I didn't overhear the entire conversation, but I did catch
references to "Mika, who's my cousin and a little silly", "I'm doing
the front crawl now" and "Skiing's fun, but you have to go fast." I
can't even imagine what else she was nattering away to Heather about,
but I was happy she was well enteretained (many thanks to Heather).

We arrived back with just enough time to get out of our sweaty clothes
and splash water on our faces before heading out for a Peking duck
dinner. Thankfully, the restaurant was just around the corner. The
food was good and certainly plentiful, but the kids were wrangy and
wiggly. Thankfully, the staff took a particular interest in our
rather wrangy kids and seemed happy to play with them for a bit in the
lobby while we each shoveled food into our faces. One gentlemen in
particular - the maitre'd I think - had all sorts of questions about
them. Unfortunately, said questions were all in Chinese. I'm not
sure what he really wanted to know, but I answered in English and he
looked at me blankly. To be honest, he may have been asking me to get
my kids the heck out of his restaurant, while I'm smiling and nodding
and telling him their ages. Ah well, they all had big smiles and
goodbyes for the kids when we were leaving and the maitre d' kept
whistling some sort of bird song to Ren, so really it couldn't have
been all bad.

Tomorrow is our last full day in China. There is a wee bit of sadness
that comes on at this stage in the trip knowing that we'll be taking
the kids away from the country of their birth, and as a result,
denying them the opportunity to get to know this country and their
heritage. We have also settled into a routine as a family, and while
temporary, all routines bring comfort and the prospect of starting
anew is always daunting.

There is a half day excursion planned for the summer palace, but we'll
likely skip it in favour of loading up on sweet milk (Ren's favourite
drink) and airplane distractions. If anyone out there knows of any
good airplane games or toys, please let us know, cause we're gonna
need'em.

Good night from Beijing.