Mari and I went to the great wall at BaDaLing today.
Monday and Tuesday this week were beautiful days - t-shirt weather. Wednesday started off well but had a stiff wind in the evening. So on Thursday morning, as I handed Mari long underwear, I told her we would be best off dressing very warmly because it is often much colder at the wall than in the city even though the wall is only an hour north. Since we were driving we could leave any unnecessary layers in the car. Better safe than sorry - right?
And at 7:30am we left the apartment and headed up.
At 8:20, as we were almost there, ash started to fall. Ash? Well, weird big flakes of something.
...White... big.. flakes....sticking to the windshield. What else could it be?
"Is this a joke?" asked Mari.
But no, alas, it was not. It was in fact snow.
SNOW?!?
Yup.
Somewhat unexpected*. By the time we had parked the car at BaDaLing, there was accumulation on the ground. Since we had come all that way and had brought warm hats we decided to venture forth regardless of the weather conditions.
IT WAS GREAT!
It turns out that Chinese people are also very amused by surprise snow storms and the desire to make snowballs seems to be universal. (Mari had 3 snowballs thrown at her by 3 different strangers, all without her instigating anything.)
The wall at this location (and most of the others for that matter) is quite steep sometimes and it was rather entertaining watching what happens when steep slopes become covered in ice slicks. We stayed at one particular ramp for over 15 minutes watching people (attempt to) go up and down the slide.
The picture to the left is of Mari trying to come up one particularly steep section with the help of the handrail. It might have been easier if she wasn't laughing hysterically at the time.
This icing on the cake was that the crowds didn't even get thick until we were coming off the wall. For those who have not visited the wall, the mass of tourists is overwhelming to say the least and really can not be described adequately to anyone who has not witnessed this particular phenomena.
In total (and even in parts for that matter) we had a fantastic morning!
*Snow was unexpected as it is April. If I lived in Winnipeg, this would not be as surprising, but in Beijing it was rather shocking.
2 comments:
Great shots!!
I'm jealous. How many times am I allowed to come visit? :D
Equally surprising that we had a bit of a snow squall in NJ a couple days ago. Raining when I woke up. An inch of snow on the ground by the time I was ready for work. Practically zero visibility on the way to work. But by 2pm everything had melted and it was a sunny day. Not saying that it's Global Warming, but our climate is getting more screwed up every year.
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