48 hours as a tourist

Sophia and me at the entrance to Jinshanling.

Wow, I've already been in Beijing for two days. Time flys. The highlight so far has been The Great Wall. I asked my hosts in advance if we could visit a more remote section of The Wall, and they graciously planned a trip to the Jinshanling section. This was about a two hour drive northeast of Beijing, and I was accompanied by Sophia and our professional driver, Miss Ching. We left Beijing at 6am in order to beat the amazingly awful Beijing traffic. Even earlier would have meant better light for photos, but I couldn't really impose a pre-dawn trip on my hosts! There's some good stories to tell of the day's events, but they will have to wait for more time and a real keyboard. The summary is that Sophia and I spent about two and a half hours hiking an almost completely empty section of The Wall and it was amazing! The Jinshanling section is remote enough to attract far fewer tourists, and we were early enough to have it almost all to ourselves. Most of what we hiked was restored, but the latter sections were unrestored. Enjoy the images!

 

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