Day 14 - Beijing

We’re going to the Great Wall! We’re going to the Great Wall!  Yes, I’m excited.  But first things first. We are going to see the panda. Awesome creatures. Here’s a joke: What are a panda bears two wishes?  Give up?  1. To get some sleep so they can get rid of the rings around their eyes. 2. To take a color picture. Haha. Lame, I know, but cute. The panda is an extraordinary creature. They only live in isolated places in China, and that’s it. The U.S. received it’s first pandas, as a gift, from the Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s, but couldn’t take care of them, and they died. Sad. But now we lease them from the Chinese government. And….the babies are owned by the Chinese too. Yep, that’s right. Panda bears cannot have any anchor babies.

Next stop, Ming Tombs

The Ming Tombs are located outside of Beijing.  It was the third Ming Emperor who created them, and it was from there that they began. The first Ming Emperor had established a tomb in Nanjing (southern capital), and the second Emperor is missing. The reason for this is this: Traditionally, the first son of the emperor ascends the throne when the father passes away. However, at this point, the eldest son had already died, when the first emperor died. There were still 3 other sons, but because of the tradition, the throne fell to the eldest son of the eldest son. Subsequently, the kid went missing.  When the youngest son of the first emperor ascended the throne, none of the officials would recognize his position, and he had to move the capital to Beijing, with new officials and council.

When he was in Beijing, he began construction of the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, and the Ming Tombs up in the hills. Since then, there is an elaborate network of tombs up in the hills about 1 hour away (driving).  During the third emperor’s reign, he not only began construction of numerous buildings, but had also sent out the famous Eunuch Captain Zheng He. In the tombs, there have been drawings of maps of the travels of Zheng He. The whole tomb was a very interesting historical perspective of the way the dynasty tried to help their kingdoms prosper.

Last stop: Great Wall!!!!

A structure that has been around for nearly 2,000 years and can be seen from space, it was not completed, actually, until the 1300’s.   The Chinese name for it is Chang Cheng, or long City. It was originally built as a fortification against the Hun or Mongol invasions.  At some points it is wide enough for a horse to walk, and at others not so much. The part of the wall we went to was not wide enough for a horse to walk up and down on. Especially with the steps, it would have been very treacherous for the horse.  The top was 888 meters high.  You are not able to hike at all locations on the wall, since some of it has eroded away and has become fairly unstable, but our location, we could. 19 of us made it to the top. I’ll let the videos speak for themselves.