Our Family Trip to China, Part One
I always love traveling with my grandchildren - especially now that they are older and can appreciate and enjoy more of the sights and experiences.
Over the holidays, my daughter, Alexis, her children, Jude and Truman, and I spent a wonderful and very interesting week in China. China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia, surrounded by Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Tajikistan, North Korea, and Bhutan. During our stay, we toured Xi’an and the Valley of the Warriors. On another day, we had a Tai Chi lesson - the Chinese martial art practiced for both defense training and meditation. We walked through markets filled with interesting foods and kitchen tools and tried ice biking and chair skating at Bejing’s Summer Palace Kunming Lake. Of course, we also visited The Great Wall of China - number 1 on Truman’s “must-do list” for the trip. We walked part of The Great Wall and took in many of its stunning views from the ground and from the air. If you follow my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48, you may have seen some of my photos - it was a very action-packed and fascinating journey.
Over the next few days, I’ll share lots of images from this latest family excursion - enjoy them all.
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- Here is my daughter, Alexis, after our 17-hour plane trip. We looked everywhere for examples of “Chinglish” – the term used for spoken or written English mixed with Chinese. We laughed at many of the signs, but they clearly show the complexity of the translation.
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- Our first meal in China was at the Made in China Restaurant at the luxurious Grand Hyatt Beijing. Her I am with executive chef, Kent Jin.
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- One of the dishes included these delicious shrimp served with glass noodles, or cellophane noodles, fensi – a type of transparent noodle made from starch and water.
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- After such a long airplane ride, Jude was not ready for any pictures. Here she is hiding her face from the camera.
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- I captured this gorgeous photo of the sunrise from the highway to The Great Wall.
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- Here’s another beautiful photo of the rising sun and bright orange sky. The ride to the Mutianyu Great Wall is about an hour-and-a-half from downtown Beijing.
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- We then took a chair lift to the Mutianyu Great Wall section – one of the best-preserved and best-known parts of The Great Wall.
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- On the way back down, one could take the chair lift or a toboggan ride down this slide.
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- Located 40 miles to the north of Beijing city proper, The Great Wall at Mutianyu is one of the most visited sections.
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- This section is mostly stairs, with little flat areas. I took this photo of my family walking up some of the many steps. We were very fortunate to get to The Great Wall early as there were very few tourists.
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- Here is another photo of the family. The Great Wall was mainly built from rammed earth, stones, and wood. Bricks were also heavily used in many areas, as were materials such as tiles, lime, and stone depending on the construction period. In the Qin Dynasty, glutinous rice flour was used to bind the bricks. The bricks were bound together so tightly that weeds cannot grow in many parts.
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- The Great Wall of China is the longest man-made structure in the world. And it is not one wall, but a series of fortification systems built across the historical northern borders of China. For thousands of years, The Great Wall acted like both a physical and mental barrier between the central Chinese Empire and the barbarian northern nomads. It extends 13,170 miles – that’s equal to half the length of the Equator.
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- The Great Wall is about 2700 years old and is built across 15 provinces of China – Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang. It is built on some of the most impossible locations through the most challenging terrain and on top of some of the highest peaks.
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- Here I am at one of the lookout points. It was extremely cold – sub-zero weather, but the views were so amazing.
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- The average height of the walls is about 20 to 23 feet, and the highest is 46 feet high.
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- Here is another “Chinglish” sign.
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- The Great Wall attracts 50 million visitors every year.
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- Here, one can see the towers. Beacon towers, also called watch towers or guard towers, are built throughout or alongside the Great Wall of China to watch enemies and pass military messages.
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- The wall took more than 200-years to build under different rulers.
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- While construction began under the Qin Dynasty, the recognizable segments were largely done during the Ming Dynasty.
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- Mutianyu is located in the Huairou District of Beijing, This section was built under General Xu Da of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty.
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- My granddaughter, Jude, and I also took a series of photos from the four seater helicopter, which was available for visitors. Jude loves taking photographs and is an excellent photographer.
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- During some of the construction of The Great Wall, maintenance and surveillance were regular duties of convicted criminals during the Qin Dynasty.
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- With so many lives lost during construction, grieving family members feared that the spirits of their loved ones would be forever trapped within the structure. In an effort to grant deceased laborers spiritual emancipation, mourners would often visit The Wall with roosters – a tradition believed to help guide a soul away from the fortification.
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- Here’s another tower view. In ancient times, if intruders approached, soldiers on the tower would create smoke in the daytime and light a fire at night to warn their troops – definitely among the oldest and efficient telegram systems of China.
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- We were able to get great photos of The Wall from above. The Great Wall was definitely among the highlights of the trip. Tomorrow, I will share our visit to the market and some of the interesting foods we saw and tried. And be sure to see more photos on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48.
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