Beijing - The Great Wall

Mutianyu 慕田峪 is a section of the Great Wall in China located in Huairou County 70km northeast of Beijing, about 1.5 hour driving distance from Beijing.


The Mutianyu Great Wall has the largest construction scale and best quality among all sections of Great Wall.

We hired a taxi there and took cable car to get straight to the great wall.

we walk to the left for few KM and turns into a very steep climb to its highest point.

The views from this section were really amazing!

Built mainly with granite, the wall is 7-8 meters high and the top is 4-5 meters wide.


Compared with other sections of Great Wall, Mutianyu Great Wall possesses unique characteristics in its construction

There are total 22 watchtowers on this 2,250-meter-long great wall section.




We put our ear to the wall, listened to the shouting of million of workers who had dead while building this wall.. :p
KC did it the funny way hahaha...




The steepest part of the great wall.



It was quite scary to look back while walking up the steep staircase..



The view is amazing when you get up there.. There are villages at the inward of great wall.


Another side of great wall is the mountains


2 Videos we captured:

We climbed up to 1 of the tower. It is quite hard to find the entrance.. :) The broken staircase is quite steep as well.

Both the outer and inner parapets are crenelated with merlons, so that shots could be fired at the enemy on both sides - a feature very rare on other parts of the Great Wall.

Some parapets are saw- tooth shaped instead of the regular rectangular form.



Below the parapets, there are square embrasures the top of which are designed in an arc structure, different from the traditional round embrasures.


It is used by soldiers to shot at the besiegers.


We brought some cookies, biscuits and fruits we bought a day b4 at Beijing local supermarket for lunch there. :)

We found a section with best great wall view, sit down and had our lunch while enjoying the beautiful scenery.






Another part of the great wall, leaves are red or yellow, touching the mountain tops with gold.


This gave us a totally different feeling of the great wall compare to the previous view.

Mutianyu is less crowded, so we managed to enjoy the scenery and capture a lot of nice photos.




Treking along the great wall towards the toboggan area, trees dress the hillside green at this part of great wall.

This section of great wall were built mainly with granite, the wall is 7-8 meters high



We took wheeled toboggan ride down from the wall on a winding metal track to the foot of the wall. It was exciting!!



We really enjoyed the descent by toboggan which rounded off an amazing and memorable experience.








We bought some dried fruit from the market at the foot of the wall before going back to hotel.

******End of Post*******

Beijing - Summer Palace

We had been to Beijing from 1Nov to 7 Nov 2008. KC represented his school to promote ANU at University of beijing. We took the oportunity to tour Beijing together. :) Our first trip overseas together.

The Summer Palace 颐和园 is the largest and best preserved imperial garden in China. The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill 万寿山(60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake 昆明湖 .

Before entering Summer Palace, we had our early lunch at a noodel stall in front of the Summer Palace.
The noodle called 刀削面. The noodle's texture is same as Pan Mee in Malaysia.

The gardent can be historically divided into 3 parts, namely : administration, residence and scenery browsing area.

The administraion area, taking in the Halls of Benevolence and Longevity 仁寿殿 as its principal part

This is the place where the Qing dynasty's dowager empress CiXi dealt with state affairs and received officials.

You'll find alot of bronze statues of dragon and phoenix in front of each important building.

This photo was taken right in front of Halls of Benevolence and Longevity 仁寿殿

Glasses were put on at each door of the main building to avoid tourist from entering. It is very hard to see through since they didn't put on light inside.

Below were what we saw through glasses.

There are alot of Holes at the lower part of each building.

Firewood was burned to keep the floor of the building warm during winter time.

We spent alot of time slowly enjoying the architecture of the buildings and materials which were used to build the buildings.

The residence area mainly consists of the Hall of Jade Billows玉澜堂, the Garden of Virtue and Harmony德和园, and the Hall of Joyful Longevity乐寿堂.

Garden of Virtue and Harmony 德和园 was designed as a threatre for the Empress Dowager CiXi, and consists of a theater building, and two halls, Yiledian(Hall of Nartured Joy) and Qingshantang(Hall of Celebrating Benevolence)

This is the three storey theater buidling 大戏楼. There was performance on the day.

Take a look at the video below:

The 2 halls were used as exibition rooms. You might be interested to know how Cixi looks like. :p
All Pictures below are the original photos which were taken during Qing dinasty.

Kunming Lake 昆明湖 and Longevity Hill 万寿山 form the scenery browsing area.

From the photo, you may see Tower of Buddhist Incense 佛香阁.

The Long Corridor (Changlang), 728 meters (796 yards) in length, is the longest of its kind not only in China but also in the world.

The corridor wanders westward from the Court Area, along the north bank of the Kunming Lake, at the foot of the Longevity Hill.

We walk all the way to Tower of Buddhist Incense 佛香阁.


Below are the view From the Tower area.



We walked all the way to the back of the Hill to Suzhou Market street 苏州街.
The Summer Palace is simply too big and we lost our way to get to Suzhou Market Street.

Luckily we met an old uncle aged around 70. He brought us to the market. Along the way, he kept telling us the history behind each building in Summer Palace.



The Suzhou Market Street (Suzhoujie), located behind Longevity Hill.

Suzhou Market Street 苏州街 was built originally during the reign of Emperor Qianglong to give the emperor and his empress and concubines the experience of shopping in the Water Town in Su Zhou.



The Market is great fun, because the lake serves as the street with the stalls and shops on its banks.

It has all the features of other market streets in Suzhou, a famous 'Water Town' in China.


We had our dinner at SuZhou street and enjoy the scenery and atmosphere there while having our dinner.

We also went to see Marble boat before going back to hotel.

Summer Palace is a great place to go. But you need to be very fit because you'll need to walk alot. haha.... :p

*******End Of Day 1*******