I wanted to see the Great Wall so I went on a weekend trip to Beijing. I got to fly with China Eastern Airlines (MU) and that was a great experience. Red carpet at the airport for checkin, red carpet at the lounge entrance, etc… I even got slippers to take home! The Chinese are holding the APEC meeting in Beijing and thus had closed all nearby factories and cut traffic in half. As a result the air was clear and breathable!
In Beijing I took this organised bus tour to the wall. It was a typical tourist trap tour with visits to interesting museums (shops) like the jade museum (shop) and the silk museum (shop). I did not buy any ridiculously expensive jade and especially not any silk as we all well know that Hangzhou, not Beijing, is the silk capital of China…
The Great Wall was great. The tourist bit was well maintained but I walked to the off-limits section that isn’t maintained and saw what a thousand years does to stone walls.
There was no need to walk up to the wall:
The well maintained section:
The real wall:
Jade shop:
The next day I went for a stroll around Tiananmen(天安门) square. The east is red:
Flew back with Air China. No red carpet.
-t