Juyongguan - the Final Countdown!
This was not my final day in china, but it was our last day walking the wall. And on the way to our last stop, Eddie explained the strange formation of the wall at that point.
Juyongguan is known as the circle wall, and that is exactly what it is. The wall was built in a circle to surround a massive garrison, that anybody going in, or out of Beijing, used to have to pass through. As a major gateway into Beijing it follows, that this was the part of the wall that we visited that was closest to Beijing, and therefore the most touristy. As we stood in the freezing carpark, and it was FREEZING - we had raced the first snows of winter to get there. We could see two distinct parts of the wall, the first semi-circle going high up the mountains and almost black with tourists. The second semi-circle lower and tourist free (pretty much). The high wall was as high and steep as any we had seen and as we looked at it we all groaned ‘don’t make us go up that!’, so you can imagine the sheer joy when we were told we were going to do the lower side! I don’t think anybody wanted to do tourists or high that day.
Now let me make this perfectly clear this is The Great Wall of China, and nothing is EVER easy. Had I done this section on the first day, it would have been hard. But this wasn’t the first day it was the last, and a week of slogging your guts out on the wall can only make you fitter. So really the only part that was hardish was the first ascent. They were the high, high steep steps that make you curse your mother (sorry mum). Each one five housebricks high and one across, I ended up doing a lot of them on hands and knees. Once up the initial section, however, the wall was a series of gentle slopes and smallish rises of easy stairs (exactly how I had imagined the wall would be before I got there, it didn’t take us long to get to the summit where we all donned our Alzheimers t-shirts for a group photo. That done, the leaders said to us, ‘stay here for a while, look around, this will be your last chance to see the wall, soak it up, enjoy it. We are going off for a little while, we will see you at the end.’
Looking at the wall that day was amazing, it was cold, but bright, with none of the haze that we had encountered before, you could see the elongated semi-circle of the other side of the garrison on the mountains across the ravine, falling sharply to the road below, there were a few tourists here, but they were soaking up the late autumn sunshine and marvelling as much as the rest of us, at the amazing feat of architecture and wonderful work of art, that had cost the lives of so many, to build.
I gave it fifteen minutes or so, and saw at least ten people leave before I did, so I figured this was a good time to set off. The steps were steep going down and I said hello to several members of the group as I passed them on the way. By this time I was a girl on a mission, I zoomed down those stairs and reached the bottom quickly.
At the bottom was a long flat stretch, and I was on top of the world. I had conquered the wall! And this was the home straight. One of the tour leaders had mentioned along the way, that I walk like a pub manager, which from years of experience - I know I do, and I did my best pub manager strut, larger than life, chest puffed out (more than it is naturally) I owned that wall! It was mine!
Half way across the flat stretch I saw that there was a huge rise of stairs, and at the top the tour leaders had set up a finishing line. Competitive Chatfield head screwed on tight, I decided I was going to go out in a personal blaze of glory, (after all I wasn’t the first to finish) and I decided to sprint the last couple of flat steps and ALL of the stairs, the thought crossed my mind for a second that I wouldn’t be able to do it, but competitive to the last (not a nice personality trait, but one that I cant denigh) I set of running. By the time I passed that line, I was out of breath but jubilant! What an achievement, I had faced my demons and won! I was the comeback queen, from being the biggest, sickest, grouchiest, baby, I had passed that line blazing! My personal best!
It was only after I reached the top of the stairs and passed the line that I realised that I was the first of the group to get up there, by quite a long chalk, it had not been a running race but I had finished the marathon first.
I was really pleased with myself, but it soon became apparent, that that was not the thought of the leaders. Repeatedly they asked me to go and join the group, but at the time I was so pleased that I had done so well, and so glad to have finished my challenge, I replied with ’are you joking - I’M DONE WITH STAIRS!’.
When the rest of the group arrived, they were all treated to a champagne shower from one of the four large bottles of Chinese champagne, that was waiting for us when we arrived. Within a short time, we all had a paper cup of champagne to toast the end of our journey. You would think that Chinese champagne would be horrid but it wasn’t, it was lovely. We all stood at the top of those stairs in the shelter of a rebuilt garrison building, and hugged, cried, and congratulated one another (nobody saw me cry - never forget I’m Yorkshire and I’m hard) I spent half an hour trying to gulp away a lump in my throat that a ladyboy would have been proud of! I ended up wearing my sunnies to stop the sly tear that was trying very hard to form (it didn’t work very well).
I am quite often distant at any emotional outpouring, and maybe people found me prickly, but I was quickly left alone to my thoughts and soon we were walking back through one of the huge garrison gates to the bus.
These gates were made of white stone covered in Buddhist carvings of demons being vanquished. We had walked through the most spectacular one on the way into the wall, that had deep grooves on the floor made by the cartwheels. These had been covered in plexiglass, but Eddie assured us that only the week before they had been open and that this was one of the improvements the Chinese government had implicated to protect the wall from the tourists they would get during and after the Olympics.
Just further on from the busses, was another market with aggressive sellers, although this time they didn’t come out from behind their stalls, but the yells of t-shirt! you buy! you buy! followed us continuously down the line, and you couldn’t look without being hassled, it was too much for me, so I turned round and headed for the safety of Eddie bus, where I sat and waited for the others.
Once we were all on the busses, we headed off to Beijing, where our first stop was the Jade factory, after a brief talk from one of the reps, we set off into the factory.
Jade comes in two types. Soft and hard and is known as the living Jade, because it changes colour over time and with warmth, for example if you have a solid bracelet (bloody expensive) and it is of the palest green, over time the colour will change, not necessarily all in one spot, but in patches, to vibrant green or dark green. The hard jade is mostly made into jewellery and the soft into ornaments like family balls, that are made from a solid lump but carved into free floating balls one inside the other, until you have about five, all hollow except for the central one, all rolling about, one inside the other the outer one being carved into a phoenix and dragon that are rolling together as if in love with one another. They are truly lovely, and such a skill to create.
Inside the factory was set up a market place, but with no pushy sellers this time, dotted around this, was works of jade that were so huge that they were both fabulous and vulgar at the same time. In one part of the room was a sailing ship, with all the ropes and chains carved from jade, this thing was hideous but must have been a real labour of love, it was six to seven feet tall built from what appeared to be a solid lump of jade and no detail had been forgotten - including the price tag which set it at forty five grand (ninety if you are in the U.S.)
After wandering round and making a few purchases (you can only make sure you are getting kosher stuff, if you get it from the factory) we were going to go back to our hotel. We had also been told, that we would go to one of Beijing’s silk factories, and so many people were disappointed that we did not have time to buy our outfits for that night’s celebration meal that we set of for the silk place hoping for the best.
We got there with hardly any time to spare, and so the management cut our tour short, even so, it was really interesting, we saw the machines that unravelled the cocoons one by one, twisting each minute thread into a thread of eight (Chinese lucky number) which make up the threads that are woven to make silk fabric of the finest quality. We were also treated to a demonstration of how they make silk duvets, They take one cocoon and stretch it, unbroken over a thing like half a coat hanger to open it up, then another, and another, one on top of the other until they have done eight, and they look like a funny felt hat. This is then taken over to what is basically a bed shaped square and four ladies grab the sides of the felt hat, and pull like billy’o until it spreads out to the size of a kingsize bed (they made it look easy I’m sure it wasn’t , and they do this fifty or more times, and make up fifty or more (cant quite remember how many, but I think it was fifty) layers of downy white silky fluff that sits one on top of the other, until they have a thin duvet, these duvets are super lightweight, but are warm in the Chinese winters, and cool in the roasting Chinese summers. They are, (we were shown) completely waterproof and hardly ever need washing (good job in China), they will also last, with care, a lifetime and you can pass them on to your children (if they want to sleep in the same bedding you slept in) I must admit to wanting one, but I had my heart set on a silk shirt/blouse thing for that nights dinner. I found one, of the most beautiful glossy black with flowers of an almost electric red woven in and they had it in my size!! I thought they would only have Chinese women petite, but no, they had MY size!!!! And the price was a snip! Pleased as punch, I got on the bus and we went back to the first hotel that we had been to - the (now) fancy pancy, lovely, four star Beijing hotel, with the huge bathtub, and hot water whenever you wanted it, clean, brightly lit bathroom, with soft, white, duvet clad, pillowy cloud beds and clean towels. Did I mention (once or twice) more hot water than you can shake a stick at. We didn’t know how good we had it before but OH. MY. GOD! We did now aaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
That night we got dressed up in all our finery and met up in the bar where we complimented each other, and reminisced over a beer or two before being taken to what we were told was the best duck restaurant in Beijing, and they weren’t wrong!
We entered a private room that had been set aside for us, took our tables, where lovely cold beers and wines awaited our arrival, and bit by bit out came the spread, although by this time I was over Chinese food, I tasted a few of the things that came out, all wonderfully delicious! veggies galore, chicken, beef all in beautiful sauces, and what seemed like hundreds of scallops cooked on the half shell, with garlic and chilli, just amazing! After that, came the main event, Crispy Duck, cooked to perfection, with hoi-sin, cucumber, spring onions and pancakes, and they kept on bringing it out until we could eat no more. (I polished off more than my fair share - some of the other girls didn’t like duck!).
Stuffed to the point of loosening our belts, the dvd of our trip was shown, before Ama and Johno, our Alzheimers reps started a presentation. T-shirts to everyone and silk slippers to those who had proved themselves exceptional.
After a big pat yourself on the back session, (we had raised over 150 grand for Alzheimers) the lights went down for a massive birthday cake for one of the members of our group, who’s birthday it was that day and after a big round of happy birthday! we settled down to a couple more beers, before being booted out of the restaurant, as they were closing.
A beer or five at the hotel finished my night and I sunk into my lovely soft bed, with the thoughts of the day to come in Beijing running round my head as beautiful dreams.
