Today was the trip to the Great Wall. It was a long 2 hour ride to get to the wall. After about an hour of driving, we left the skyscrapers and apartment complexes behind and headed into what appeared to be the countryside. I was puzzled that on both sides of the road and for as far as I could see, all the land was used for planting trees of all kinds. Some areas looked like reforestation attempts and others looked like ornamental trees planted for harvesting later. There were also long rows of decrepit greenhouses in use or falling apart. I suppose that this area is either for growing trees for lumber or an attempt by the Chinese government to green up the landscape outside of Beijing for the Olympics, since many of the trees looked recently planted. I can only guess why there were so many trees planted in fields along the way to the wall. Also on the trip out, I noticed that the toll plazas had booths, but nobody inside them. Instead, there was one worker out front counting money in a briefcase, another behind the booth taking money, and another further back operating a computer which I guess controlled the lights. It seems like whoever built the toll plaza had not consulted those who would be running it, forcing the toll collectors to run this improvised system without actually using the toll buildings. Perhaps this is the inefficiency of the Chinese bureaucracy. And immediately after the toll plaza, I saw two dozen cars pulled over in the right lane with the drivers standing around and chatting. Perhaps they stopped for a rest break since there were no official ones that I saw? But why right after the toll plaza, and why in such large numbers? It was hard to tell from my fast moving perspective up on the bus.
Once we reached the town at the foot of the Great Wall, I saw a potential use for some of the trees along the way. A mat of twigs was commonly used as a roofing material for buildings in the traditional-style family compounds near the Wall. I saw one or two businesses whose main focus seemed to be selling great piles of these twigs. Perhaps some of these trees were for this roofing. We got off the bus and made our ascent of the Great Staircase which took us to the top of the mountain on which this section of the Great Wall was perched. It was quite a trek, but it very well worth it. It was amazing to finally on the wall. I had heard of the great Wall since I was a child, and seen many photos. But I had always thought that it was so far away on our planet that I would never get to see it in person. While I walked the wall, I imagined a camera above my head zooming out until the whole planet was visible, and I understood how far away I was from everything I've ever known. It was quite an amazing epiphany, especially coupled with standing on such an ancient structure and imaging the vast histories that it has been witness to. This was especially evident when we climbed one of the staircases up to the wall and I noticed that some of the stones were almost completely worn away by the hundreds of thousands (or millions) of steps that people have taken over the Wall's long history. It was unfortunate that it was a hot and muggy day, which worsened the smog and made visibility from the wall poor. It was still easy to see the other sections of the wall, and I was particularly impressed by the view of looking back along the wall as it trailed off into the distance and stretched out in front of you. It is a very impressive sight to behold and is rightfully a huge symbol of Chinese history.
On the way back we stopped at a restaurant that has a pool of fish out front from which your meal is caught and prepared. Watching the fish beaten to death in front of us was a bit disconcerting, as were the chicken heads and feet in the bowls of food in front of us. I didn't eat any meat for the rest of the meal. I realize that I am eating these things anyways in American food, they are just cut up and deep-fried beyond recognition. But seeing such clear signs of the life in animals reminded me of the reasons that I try to limit my meat consumption everywhere.