On the way out of Beijing, the smog thickened and factory smells got stronger. Sandra, our guide, stopped with us to visit a huge jade factory. We have one here in Antigua, but this was several times larger. Barbara bought a bracelet. Click to see a large image.
The Great Wall of China ... stretching into the distance over the mountains. Luckily, here at Badaling, north of Beijing, the mountains are full of wonderfully fragrant wild white lilac trees, so it was very pleasant to wonder around. Click for a large image.
The Great Wall of China goes up (and down) some steep mountains, as you can see. The cable car behind is going up, but the wall goes up much more. The unknown photographer was on the "China side", i.e. the low wall, while we are standing with our backs against the "enemy side", i.e. the Mongolians, where the wall is higher and has lots of places where archers could hide and shoot down on the approaching enemy. Click to see a larger image.
There are parts of the wall with not many tourists, because they are harder to reach, therefore with few tourists ... Click to see a large image.
... and then there are sections, closer to entrances (or the cable car and toilets), which are pretty crowded, as here. And we visited on a weekday, apparently on weekends, everyone brings a pic-nic and the whole family. Click for a large image.
 The high "enemy side" on the left, with narrow slits to shoot at the enemies and the low "home side" on the right. There are sections that are just too hard to climb and few people do. And, as we saw through binoculars in the distance ... follow the wall in the foreground straight on to the second mountain range, where it first goes up a steep mountain and then follows the ridge to the left where there is another tower ... there are sections such as that one, that have not been restored and are crumbling into bits. But, who could restore a 6,000 km long wall, anyway? Click to see a larger image.  |
And on the way back to Beijing we stopped at two cloisonné factories. This is an ancient way to make metal and enamel objects, vases, bracelets, and so on, originally developed in Central Europe, but centuries ago transported along the Silk Road out to China and perfected there. Each of these copper vases has had glued to it hundreds or thousands of ornaments, made of thin copper strips. Then, a different enamel paint is applied into each tiny part of the ornament. Click to see a large image.
Here is one of many workers, applying paint to a vase. It will then be fired in an oven, and the paint will shrink. It will have to be painted again and fired again. Five times in total. Click to see a large image.
After five coats of enamel paint, the product is ready for the factory shop and heavy-duty bargaining. We did buy a beautiful vase and it now has Guatemalan flowers in is, as well as bracelets, animals and other items as gifts. Bargaining took longer than sightseeing. Click for a large image.