By Jordan Delp
Jordan Delp is a men’s basketball player at Augustana. He is blogging about the team’s trip to China. For more posts about the Vikings’ journey, click here.
On our last day in Beijing, we headed to The Great Wall. We were told that the Wall is so named because on a visit during his presidency, Richard Nixon called it “The Great Wall” and the name stuck. After about a two and a half hour bus ride outside of Beijing, we reached the wall, and as we have become accustomed to, were immediately met by people trying to get us to buy things.
We had two options to get up to the wall: take a cable car to the top, or climb 1,500 stairs. On the way up we all walked the stairs, and it was definitely a workout. It was well worth it though, because there was some pretty amazing scenery along the way. Reaching the wall took about twenty minutes, and when we reached it, the sight and view was jaw-dropping.
The wall was first built roughly 2,200 years ago in 220 B.C. Around 600 years ago the Ming Dynasty performed major reconstruction on the wall for a couple of reasons: to protect its borders from the outside world, and to clearly define the Chinese land. Today it is considered an historic landmark in China, and is clearly still an important part of the Chinese culture. One of the seven wonders of the world, it is just unbelievable to imagine how they were able to make such a huge structure without the modern technology we now enjoy.
We were told that it is nearly impossible to know the exact length of the wall, but estimates say that it extends roughly 3,000 miles through China. Just unbelievable. On the way down, some of us walked the steps again while others rode the trolley, but we were all met by the vendors before we even were able to get all the way down to their shops. It’s cool though, everyone got good souvenirs after bargaining for prices.
Tonight we had a very good dinner at a fantastic Chinese restaurant. The style was the same as we have become use to, but the main course was very definitive. We ate Peking Duck, a dinner that was meant to kind of put the cap on our stay in China. The name “Peking” is synonymous with Beijing, and actually has some relevance with the Quad City area because it lies on roughly the same latitude as Pekin and Rock Island, Illinois. Just some interesting facts that we learned about tonight.
Well, tomorrow we head off for the last stop on our trip, Tokyo. Should be an interesting day, with our wake up call at 4:45 a.m. It’s about a 3-hour flight from Beijing to Tokyo, and then we have a day of seeing the sights Tokyo has to offer. Should be a good ending for our trip to Asia.